Legacy of the Forgotten
by baby-kitsune9
Summary: They were half yokai living among humans. and though they had never hurt anyone, the humans were afraid of them and started to sacrifice young women to them in order to appease them. Akisame/OC, Shio/Miu, Apachai/Shigure rated M for a reason.
1. Chapter 1

Once upon a time many, many years ago there lived five half yokai martial arts masters. The five were as close as brothers despite being blood enemies and grew up together in the wilds.

Then after so many years they left the safety and security of the woods to heed the mating call of their kind and settled themselves in the nearest city where they met five noble young women and mated and married them and had children.

Things were going well for the five masters until people started to notice that they didn't age while their wives and children did. People began to talk. Then to become frightened of them despite the fact that they had never harmed a living soul.

But that all changed one night when their home was attacked by soldiers and their wives and children were all ushered into a hut made of wood where they were all locked in and the hut was set on fire.

Upon hearing the terrified screams of their families as the hut began to burn the half yokai fought their way through the lage number of soldiers sustaining many wounds that would have killed normal men and ripped the door off of the hut and one by one filed inside hoping that they had reached their families in time.

Sadly many of the women and some of their children had suffocated from the smoke while several others had become trapped under some wooden beams that had fallen from the roof of the hut and had burned to death.

Grabbing who ever was still alive the five yokai managed to carry some of the younger children from the burning hut before it collapsed and returned to the woods where they could mourn their loved ones and nurse their children back to health.

Years passed-

First five. Then ten. Then fifty. And then a hundered and finally the five yokai succumed to old age and died leaving their children behind.

The children stayed in the secluded areas that their fathers had raised them in until the mating call began to sing through their viens, forcing them from the woods in search of their mates.

Three hundred and fifty years later their great, great, great grand children of those half yokai had settled in a semi secluded place, cut off from the world around them by a twenty foot brick wall and large ornate gate made of heavy wood and iron.

This is their story...


	2. Chapter 2

It had happened again sometime during the early morning hours when Kensei Ma, the resedent kitsune demon had been doing his rounds.

He had been checking the outter perimiter of the wall seperating them from the world outside when he had noticed that the gate leading to the inside of the yard was open a little bit and something was laying on the ground.

Curious to see what the humans had done this time he walked over to the gate and paused for a moment when he caught sight of the thing on the ground. It was a woman with her hands and feet bound.

There were bruises on her pale ivory skin of her cheek, and some more on her arms and legs and she was laying in a very suggestive position indicating that someone had posed her body in such a way to grab the attention of the men inside the walls.

Apparently the humans thought that they were beasts whom would attack the first innocent they came across. The fools.

The kitsune demon made a low growling sound and dropped to one knee beside the young lady and removed his jacket and laid it over the girl to give her her modesty then felt for a pulse.

Wondering idly if the humans had accidentally killed this poor girl like they had the few that had come before her and was _relieved_ to find the soft thudding of her heart under his finger tips before he shifted his hand and brushed her dark hair out of her face so that he could see how hurt she was.

She had a busted lip, and the bruises he had noted from before and other wise didn't seem to be in any pain. _Well that is something I suppose._ He thought as he carefully stepped stepped around the girl and pushed the gate shut.

And then turned and walked back over to the wounded female and gently scooped her up in his arms and headed back to the japanese style house that he and his bretherin lived in. Intending to let his brothers see the female while her wounds were tended to and see if any of them would take an interest in her.

He got back to the house and was met at the door by one of his brothers, a giant by the name of Apachai. The man had a peculiarly somber look on his face as he tipped his head back and sniffed the air before leaning down a little bit and sniffing at the girl.

"Stop that. It's ill mannered of you to sniff a woman who's been injured." Kensei growled at the monkey demon. Apachai made a strange sound and straightened his spine and before Kensei could react, took the girl from the elder male and cradled her carefully in his arms.

It was on the tip of Kensei's tongue to snap at the younger male for snatching the wounded girl away form him like that. Part of him feared that the monkey demon may have hurt the girl further until he noticed the gentle way he held her in his arms.

Apachai held the girl as if she were as fragile as glass. _Well, well, that happened faster than I thought it would. _Kensei thought in amusement as Apachai started to walk away, pausing after several steps to turn and say, "Apachai will take good care of the pretty girl."

It sounded strangely like a promise and a vow to Kensei who could only nod his head in response to his brother's words before Apachai turned around and walked away.

That had been several years ago when Shigure had joined their ranks through the mating mark that Apachai had given her. Several years after Shigure had been left to them- Another girl, this one a seventeen year old blond foreign girl was left just inside the gate.

This time Sakaki Shio, the resedent wolf demon claimed the female as his. Leaving the Kensei and Akisame to watch their brothers with their mates in envy and wonder when they would have their chance at happiness.


	3. Chapter 3

Ten years later-

Nara Motoko Shinimoto was on her way to school when she was grabbed from behind and a rag smelling of something sickly sweet was placed over her nose and moth, muffling her screams as she thrashed around and tried to free herself of the person holding onto her.

She felt an arm slip around her middle as the hand covering her nose and mouth was pressed harder against her face, cutting off her air way.

She blinked back tears of fear and pain as she lifted one leg and brought her foot down on her attacker's instep then when his grip on her loosened she lifted one of her arms and used it to strike her attacker in the face as hard as she could.

There was a sickening crack and a pained scream as she staggered forward while her attacker staggered back.

She took several deep breaths, trying to clear her quickly blanking mind and realised that there had been some sort of drug on the rag that had been placed over her face as she tried to take a few steps forward. Her heart thudding against her ribs in fear as she suddenly found herself sitting on the ground just a few steps from a very angry red headed man wearing a baseball cap pulled down low over his face.

He snarled something at her through the blood that ran down his face from his nose and struck out with one of his legs, his foot connecting with the under side of her chin, snapping her head back violently as stars danced behind her eye lids.

She went down hard and lay still, her consciousness fading in and out as the man violently wrenched her upright by one of her arms and reared back his fist and hit her in the stomach hard enough to force what little bit of air in her lungs out of them.

Nara gasped in pain and started to double over but the man hit her again before hauling her to her feet then tossing her over his shoulder. Swearing at her for being such a 'difficult bitch' to handle then made his way to a rust colored old van and tossing her into the back and quickly tied her hands behind her back and then stuffed a dirty rag into her mouth and slammed the back door and then made his way to the front and climbed into the driver seat and started the vehicle.

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Akisame was home alone due to the fact that Kensei was off somewhere reading and his brothers Sakaki and Apachai had taken their mates into the woods for a day of relaxation, hiking, swimming, and love making.

He had been sitting in the same spot for the past three hours and was finally starting to get bored and was about to go inside and move around some of Sakaki and Apachai's personal things just to mess with them a little bit.

When he heard the gate across the yard squeak as it was pushed open a little bit and sat there wondering what was the human he smelled on the other side was doing as something was dragged into the yard before the human male realised that he was sitting there watching him.

The man made an alarmed sound as Akisame slowly got to his feet and stepped down from the porch and started walking towards the human intending to frighten him off before he could get into any more mischief and was only slightly startled when the human _threw_ something at him.

All Akisame could really see was a blur of black, navy blue and white. Still he reached out and caught the object and staggered back a little ways under it's weight as his arms constricted around it. He looked down at the object and scowled when he realised that he was holding an unconscious girl in his arms.

_What the hell? _Why did the humans keep delivering wounded, unconscious young women to them? It was on the tip of his tongue to ask the human but the male was already gone. Leaving him the sole guardian of the poor girl in his arms.

He sighed and shifted his hold on her so that he had her upper body resting against his shoulder while he used one arm to support her lower body and then walked over to the gate and pushed it firmly closed with his free hand then turned on his heel and walked back towards the house.

Once inside he made his way to his room and carefully laid the girl on his bed. And then stepped over to his desk and picked up the antique letter opener that his father had left to him upon his death, and then walked back over to the bed and cautiously inserted the blade between one of the girl's wrists and the rope. And carefully sawed through the bindings and tossed them aside before removing the dirty rag from her mouth.

He held the dirty rag in his hands for a moment before lifting the strangely smelling fabric to his nose and took a small sniff and quickly tossed the rag across the room when he caught the scent of some sort of chemical on it, then looked back at the girl wondering what sort of chemical the damned human male had exposed her too.

Next he checked her over to see how hurt she was and got more than a little _pissed_ at seeing the bruises on her porcelain colored skin. He doubted that he would ever understand why human males brutilized their females like this.

Weren't the males of the species supposed to be protective of the females? Weren't they supposed to take care of them and treat them with dignity? Weren't they supposed to provide them with food, clothing, shelter and a safe place to call their home and raise their children?

If so then the humans of late have been doing a piss poor job of taking care of their females. It seemed in recent years as if the human race had lost all sense of honor when dealing with their females. Because all they seemed to do was beat them, rape them, sell them for drugs- Honestly Akisame was distgusted with the males of the human race.

And though he generally didn't like to involve himself in humans, he couldn't help himself with the girl. She just seemed to need him more than anything else at the moment due to her wounds and lack of defenses. And far be it from him to leave the poor thing to her own vices. There was no telling if she would survive or not if he did.

Besides he was far too honorable to leave her to suffer as she was now.

He checked her over to make sure that she didn't have any broken bones, he ran his hands through her mid back length dark hair then lifted her shirt up a little bit and checked to make sure that she didn't have any internal bleeding and let out a soft angry hiss when his fingers came into contact with a dark bluish purple bruise twice the size of his open hand in the middle of her stomach.

He lightly skimmed his finger tips over the mark and then removed his hand from her when she twitched in her sleep, her expression becoming pained for a moment before relaxing again.

_I guess this mark is very sensitive. I should avoid touching it again until she's feeling better._ Akisame thought as he gently pulled her shirt back down into place and then stood up and walked over to his closet and dug out an extra blanket because he didn't want to move the girl any more than necessary and carefully covered her with it then made himself comfortable in the floor next to the bed and leaned his back against the wall and resigned himself to waiting.


	4. Chapter 4

He must have dozed off or something without realizing it. Because one minute he was alone (aside from the girl of course) and the next, his brothers were standing around his bed with worried/pissed looks on their faces.

Sakaki leaned down and sniffed at the girl, meaning no harm. He was just trying to get her scent so that he wouldn't mistake her for an intruder later on. Yet for some reason the slight action pissed Akisame off enough from him to _growl_ at his demon brothers warningly.

Sakaki looked at him for a second, a frown on his face, then straightened his spine when Akisame growled at him a second time. This time the growl was louder and more threatening. The possessive nature of his growl practically screamed at his brothers, _"Get the hell away! That girl is mine!" _

Sakaki held his hands out palm up in a placating gesture and slowly, very slowly moved himself and Apachai and Kensei away from the bed and watched in shock as Akisame practicaly jumped to his feet and bolted over to the bed and scooped up the girl and sat back down with her wrapped in his arms, her head laying on his shoulder as Akisame glared at them.

He glared at them for a good five minutes straight, his glare promising swift and _painful_ retaliation if they made a move to get glose to the girl again. Then looked away and rubbed his cheek against the top of the girl's head.

Akisame didn't know what was wrong with him. He'd never growled at his brothers before no matter how mad or annoyed he had gotten with them. But then he'd never had anything worth fighting them over. He did now.

In the time that his brothers had been gone Akisame had determined that _he_ and only _he_ would be the one to care for this female. He would tend to her wounds, woo her, bind her to him as his bride and mate with her. She would be his. And he would be hers.

He had even decided to share some of his life force with her to keep her from aging and dying before he did. But only if she wanted him too. He would for the most part leave the decision to her. At least until she turned thirty or she became ill or mortally wounded, then the decision would be made for her.

"Akisame?" Apachai took a small step forward and dropped down to one knee so that his smaller brother wouldn't have to strain his neck looking up at him. Akisame stopped rubbing his cheek against the girl's downy soft hair and looked at Apachai, his eyes narrowing slightly. Hadn't he warned them not to move closer a second or so ago? He wondered in irritation as he tightened his hold on the girl a little bit.

"What?" Akisame ground out in a rough tone.

"Is the new pretty girl Akisame's bride?" Apachai asked innocently. Akisame nodded his head curtly and Apachai started to make a high pitched excited sound that was quickly and abruptly cut off by Sakaki when he grabbed the monkey demon and put him in a head lock with one arm and used his free hand to cover his mouth and gave Akisame an apologetic look.

"Sorry to have bothered you Akisame. Bring the girl by later and introduce her to us okay."

Akisame stared at them with a peculiar look on his face then nodded his head again. He'd do that. If only to introduce his bride to his brothers and let her meet her sisters. But after that her time was his. And he wouldn't stand for anyone interfering.

His brothers must have known that he wouldn't stand for them butting into his personal time with his bride because they left him shortly after that.

Hours passed and Akisame occupied himself with several things. Small things like making sure that his bride was comfortable when he laid her back on his bed, then straightened up his room a little bit. Making sure that he didn't have any carvings or dirty clothes lying around.

Luckily he was a neat person by nature so he didn't actually have to pick anything up. His clothes were all where they should be and his carvings were neatly stowed away in their hiding place which left him with the task of obsessively dusting a dustless room just to kill time.

Finally- at about two in the morning- the girl on his bed started to stir and show signs of life pulling him away from his dusting so that he could sit on the edge of the bed. He wanted to be the first thing she saw when she woke up.

Her eyes fluttered and Akisame caught a glimpse of vivid turqoise as she lifted her hands and rubbed her eye lids in an effort to wake herself up and made a distressed sound as her arms fell away from her face and her eyes opened and she looked at him.

Akisame sucked in a breath and held it as he noted the confusion and fear in her eyes and gently brushed some of her dark hair back from her face and made a shushing sound as he said softly, "Shhh. Don't try forcing yourself awake. You'll make yourself sick."

"W-Where- W-Who-" Her thoughts were still muddled, no doubt from the drug that had been used to partially knock her out.

"You're in a safe place. My name is Akisame. What's your name little one?" He asked curiously as he combed her silken hair back from her face with his fingers. She twitched and turned her head as her throat worked for a second and she was finally able to tell him her name.

She told him her name was Nara. She then told him that she had been on her way to school when she had been attacked. Akisame listened patiently to her as she told him what had happened to her and how scared she had been before bursting into tears and crying herself back to sleep curled up in his arms.


	5. Chapter 5

Police Chief Negi Shinomoto hung up his phone and sat back in his chair and ran his hands over his face in frustration. His daughter hadn't shown up to school today. Which was unusual of her since she didn't skip her classes and wasn't at home with a fever or anything.

In fact she wasn't at home at all. Which was puzzling to him since she normally didn't stay out past eight in the evening.

He had been working a murder case when he had gotten a call from one of Nara's friends asking him if she was feeling okay.

Puzzled at first he had asked what Nara's friend what she was talking about and had nearly jumped up out of his seat and run for the door when she told him that Nara hadn't shown up at school.

But he was a police officer and flying off the handle was known to cost people _dearly_ so he had forced himself to calm down and ask some questions one of which had been a list of names and numbers of his daughter friends.

Then he had systematically called each person on the list and asked them if Nara was with them, if they had seen her earlier in the day, did she have a boyfriend that she may have skipped school to spend some time with.

The answers had been one 'no sir' after another until he had nothing left to ask or anyone left on the list to call.

It would seem that his precious little girl tended to only stay in contact with a handful of people. And never hung out with anyone that he didn't know. Not only that but she didn't have a secret boyfriend and so wouldn't have gone anywhere with one.

Not without telling someone.

So what the hell happened to his little girl?

He dropped his hands away from his face and looked at the clock hanging on the left wall of his office and growled. He had an hour left before he could go home and there was no telling what could have happened to his daughter by now. There wasn't even a way to know if she was alright.

He sighed and stood up from his desk and grabbed his jacket pausing briefly when one of his friends called out to him, "Hey chief, what are you doing? Going somewhere?"

"I'm going out." Was all that Negi said as he walked past his friend and headed towards the door. He felt no reason to say anything just yet about Nara being missing. Not when there was a chance that he might be able to find her alive and well somewhere himself.

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Akisame spent most of the night laying on the bed next to his bride due to the fact that she had cried herself back to sleep while clutching his shirt and he couldn't move without waking her.

So instead he contented himself with laying there on his side with his arms around Nara, whispering soothing words to her whenever she showed signs of distress while trying hard not to think about the_ horror_ and _fear_ she must have felt when she had been grabbed.

He could only imagine what had run through her mind when her attacker had grabbed her. When he had mercilessly struck her over and over again before rendering her unconscious and tying her up. Then to dump her in one of the most frightening places in Japan.

He fell asleep thinking that if he ever saw the human that had brought her to Ryozanpaku; he'd rip the bastard's arms and legs off and listen to him scream while he bled out for what he had done to Nara.

_He would. He would. He- _Nara shifted closer to him in her sleep and buried her face against his chest and made a strange little purring sound causing his lips to curve up in a small smile as he buried his nose in her hair and slept.

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Nara woke up feeling like she was in a furnace. Her body felt so hot that her hair and shirt were damp with sweat.

She squirmed and tried to move away from the source of the warmth in an effort to cool down and jerked awake when something heavy settled over her side. She opened her eyes and blinked, seeing nothing but white at first then tipped her head back a little bit and blinked again when she soft tan skin.

_What the-_ She looked up a little bit more, her eyes moving from what she now realised to be a chest three times as big as what she normally saw. She stared at the thick wide shoulders, then up a little more to the face of a man that she didn't recall ever seeing before and started hypervenilating.

What was she doing in bed with a strange man?

She moved one of her hands and grasped his wrist and tried to lift his arm off of her but for some reason that she couldn't fathom, she couldn't lift his arm. It was just too heavy. Which was weird since she was well known for her ability to lift up to three times her own body weight when she went with her dad to the local gym on the weekends for some father daughter bonding time.

She squirmed a little more and stopped cold when she somehow managed to get herself in the bizarre position where her face was level with the strange man's stomach, dangerously close to his- _Don't think about it!_

Her eyes widened slightly in alarm and she squeaked when the man's fingers unconsciously tangled in her hair and held her in place in the mortifying poition for several minutes before the man stirred slightly.

His eyes opened and he frowned at the empty spot that she had been in earlier then glanced down at her and blinked then raised a brow at her as he took in the embarrassed look on her face along with the position she was in.

He made a throaty sound and untangled his fingers from her hair and rolled over onto his back and stifled a yawn with one hand as she scrambled off of the bed and flattened herself against the wall across the room from the bed, and watched him as he sat up and curled his legs almost to his chest and rested his elbows on his knees, and cocked his head and studied her from underneath his dark hair.

It was obvious that she didn't recall waking up and talking to him last night.

Which meant that she had forgotten what he had said about being in a safe place. "Good morning Nara... Did you sleep well?" Akisame asked as he shifted slightly on the bed and noticed that his mattress was a little bit damp then looked back at her for a moment before standing up.

He hadn't noticed before that her hair and shirt was damp or he would have tossed her the blanket that he had wrapped her in last night to keep her from catching a chill. However he could work with this since he would imagine that she would want a chance to clean herself up and put on some clean clothes.

He walked over to a chest that he kept in the far corner of his room and opened it up and pulled out a hand sewn dress that he had made when he was younger. It had been a bit of a pet project to him, something to kill time while imagining his future bride and what she would look like, her likes, dislikes exct.

His project had ended in five disasters not even fit to be called dresses. And one _masterpiece_ made of white silk with lavender, pink, mint green, and sky blue embrodered flowers and butterflies with a few delicate little seed pearl items with pink and sky blue topaz beads. A necklace, with a matching set of earrings and bracelets.

All of which matched the dress that he had made and would look lovely on his bride once she had bathed and changed into it.

He set the dress and the little wooden box that the jewelry was in aside and then pulled out an ivory and mother of pearl and silver comb and then closed the chest. It was about this time that Nara finally managed to find her voice and asked in in a shakey tone.

"Who are you? How do you know my name?"

Akisame ignored her questions for a moment as he gathered up the dress the small box of jewelry and the comb and quietly walked over to her. "I told you my name last night but since you've forgotten then I will tell you again. My name is Akisame. As for how I know your name, you told it to me last night before crying yourself to sleep."

Some of the fear went out of her expression, changing it to one of wariness as she regarded him with her exotic turqoise eyes for a second before asking in a hushed tone. "Did the strange man grab you too?"

Akisame blinked at her silly question and was tempted to point out that he was six foot six in a half, and weighed a solid three hundred and ten pounds, all of which was _pure_ muscle. Only an idot with a death wish would try to grab him. Still after a second or so of mulling over her question he supposed that she had asked a valid question and as such needed a valid answer.

"No..."

"Then you're one of the guys that grabbed me?" The question irked him somewhat. After all the mere suggestion that he would grab some defensless girl off of the street and beat her then tie her up and dump her in a strange place was just offensive to him on so many levels. He had far more honor and tact than that.

If he was planning to grab someone off of the street, he'd first seduce them, then have them follow him willingly so that they couldn't later claim that he kidnapped them against their will.

"No. No. Nothing like that."

"Then how did I end up in _your_ hands?" Nara asked suddenly, her entire demeanor changing in an instant. Akisame got a bemused look on his face and pretended to think for a moment before saying.

"Well to put it rather bluntly- You were dumped in _my_ yard by your attacker."

Nara narrowed her eyes at him and stepped away from the wall and got in close to him like she was going to attack him. Something that surprised Akisame quite a bit considering the differences in their height and weight. God knew that if she attacked him, he'd end up destroying her. Metaphorically speaking of course.

Literally speaking he'd never raise his hand to a woman. There was no honor in it.

"Your lying." She hissed at him, and he gave her a mock hurt look. He wasn't really surprised to find that she didn't believe him. He'd probably not believe him either if he was in her place.


	6. Chapter 6

It took some clever talking and even more clever manuvering on his part but after about twenty minutes Akisame managed to get his reluctant bride to agree to using the resedent bathroom to shower and clean herself up.

And while she was busy cleaning herself he had charged himself with the task of guarding her privacy by standing just a few feet from the door with his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl on his face while he tried not to think about the fact that she was in the bathroom alone, and defensless, and probably in need of someone to scrub her back for her...

He shook his head and lifted one hand to pinch the bridge of his nose as he flushed. Well if there had been any doubt before that Nara was his destined bride, there wasn't any now since yokai like him felt _nothing_ for females outside of sibling like affection unless they were meant to mate with them.

He heard the squeaking of the water being turned off and quickly blanked his face and went back to standing guard. Ten minutes later the door cracked open a little bit, letting some steam escape from inside of the room as he turned around and looked expectantly at the door and held his breath as he waited for her to come out so that he could see how the dress looked on her.

He heard Nara mutter something on the other side of the door that sounded suspiciously like, "Courage, girl. Courage." Before she opened the door and slowly stepped out of the room wearing the dress and jewelry that he had made. Akisame's eyes widened a little bit in surprise and appreciation as he caght sight of her outside of the steam.

His Nara looked stunning in the intricately made dress and jewelry. Her mid back length dark hair had been combed and the hair at her temples had been pulled back into a small pony tail. Several strands escaped the small pony tail to flirt with her cheeks.

The dress fit her like he had always imagined it would. The soft silk hung just a little bit off of her shoulders and clung to the curves of her breasts and hips enticingly while the rest of the fabric hung loosely down to her ankles to better allow free movement.

"You look lovely Nara. That dress suits you-" Akisame said with a small smile as he slowly dropped his arms to his sides. Nara blushed a lovely pink color and looked like she wanted to argue with him yet stayed quiet as he continued speaking in a cheerful tone. "You'll be one of the prettiest breakfast guests we've had so far."

Nara actually opened her mouth and managed to say, "Wha?" To him. And though she may have been about to say more, he cut her off by grabbing her hand in a gentle yet firm grip and half walked, half dragged her down the hall to the dining room where he could hear his brothers and his sister-in-laws happily chatting away while they waited for Nara and he to enter the room and join them.

He opened the dining room door and quickly ushered Nara into the room and held her in place in front of him with a hand on one of her shoulders as his brothers and sister-in-laws all turned to look at them.

Nara made a funny little squeaking sound and tried to back up but couldn't move any further than his body would allow so instead she flattened herself against his front and squirmed a little bit. Causing a painful chain reaction throughout his body that made him very, _very_ uncomfortable.

He could feel his cock hardening against the soft curve of her butt and quickly seized Nara by the upper arms and lifted her up off of the floor and set her aside then let her go and quickly moved over to his spot at the table and waited for her to make up her mind about whether or not she was going to join them or run away.

Apparently Nara felt just a little _overwhemed_ about having so many people staring at her. It was either that or she was trying to slowly drive him insane, because she turned and ran out of the room like the hounds of hell were nipping at her heels.

The second she disappeared every pair of eyes in the room turned to him. Some were concerned, some were amused, yet no one dared to say anything to him knowing that he was in a precarious place at the moment and was uncertain about provoking him for safety reasons. He sighed and quietly made his way over to the door and peeked out as if he was expecting the girl to throw something at his head like Miu had when she had first faced the group the morning after waking up with Sakaki in bed with her.

She'd been rather tempermental and unpredictable too. However after going those moments exactly like this with Shigure and Miu, Akisame should have expected Nara to react in a similar fashion. She was after all a defenseless girl with no clue about her future or what they-er he might be planning to do to her. So it was only natrual that she would feel the need to run away at this point in time.

And being a distraught woman looking for help made it somewhat easy for him to predict what she would do next so he left the room and walked through the house listening for any signs of Nara's foot falls. And paused outside of Kensei's study in the back of the house and tilted his head to the side as he tried to determine if she had found the telephone that Miu and Shigure had insisted that they put in, and upon not hearing anything moved on and stepped out the door down the hall leading to the open yard.

He blinked against the brightness of the sun and waited for his eyes to adjust to the light before he bothered to look around and managed to catch a glimpse of Nara as she disappeared into the woods behind the house.

_Uh-oh._ Akisame thought as he took off running towards the woods intending to hunt her down and catch her before the silly girl got herself caught in one of Sakaki's hidden bear traps or something.

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Nara wasn't paying attention to anything in the woods.

She was just too busy running from the scary group of people in the dining room, too busy running from Akisame whom had been very kind and patient with her yet hadn't left her side for more than a few minutes after handing her the dress and other things.

Making her feel like she was about to be sacrificed. Making her feel _trapped_ like a prisoner.

Dammit she had to get home. She had a _dad._ A life. _Friends_. School-

She heard something big break through the bushes behind her and glanced over one of her shoulders and made an alarmed squeaking sound when she saw Akisame closing in on her, his expression dark as he lunged at her, catching her around the waist with his arms.

She screamed as his body hit her squarely in the back, forcing her small body to the ground under his weight where he quickly pinned her and sat there holding her down, his body shaking.

God if she had gotten even ten more steps ahead of him she would have been caught in one of Sakaki's traps and could have lost her foot, or even bled to death depending on how deeply the bear traps jaws would have ripped through her flesh.

She pushed against him and kicked and screamed and finally went completely still when he covered her mouth with one hand and leaned down and snarled at her, "_You damn stupid girl._ Do you have any idea how close you just came to being serious hurt or killed?"

Nara's eyes went wide in her pale face as she stared at him as he took a second to calm himself before growling. "These woods are _littered_ with traps used to both kill animals and wound to keep intruders out. It isn't wise to run wildly through them without knowing how to spot those traps and disarm them-" He removed his hand from her mouth and leaned down until his face was a hairsbreath from her own and hissed. _"Don't. Run. Away. Again."_


	7. Chapter 7

Shortly after that Akisame climbed off of her and grasped both of her wrists and pulled her up from the ground and picked her up and carried her back to the house where he then locked her inside of his room and then left her so that he could get several changes of clothes for her as well as some food.

By the time he returned to his room he found Nara had already changed out of the dirty dress and was sitting huddled in the corner of his room under the window dressed in one of his long sleeved cotton sweaters.

The bulky shirt was so big on her that it looked like a dress. The collar was tight around her neck while the sleeves were so long that they had to be rolled up several times just so that she could use her hands and the hem of the shirt fell down around her knees.

The color didn't suit her since it was a bright red. And he was of the mind that a woman of her beauty should dress in colors like white, pink, blue, some soft greens, teals, blacks, purples exct.

He stepped into the room with a tray of food in one hand and a bundle of clothes tucked under his other arm and looked at her with a worried look on his face as he mentally went over what had happened earlier.

He'd lost his temper a little bit.

He hadn't been able to help himself. The more he thought about her being hurt or worse the more he felt the need to tie her to his bed and never let her up again. She'd _scared_ him that badly.

He dropped the bundle of clothes that he'd gotten from both Shigure and Miu onto his bed for Nara to go through later and then turned around and closed the bedroom door knowing that if he didn't Nara might try to run again.

She wouldn't get as far as she had before since he would be on her heels before she could get half way down the hall, but he couldn't take the chance of leaving the door open while his back was turned.

He locked the door once it was closed and then walked over to his desk and set the tray of food down and picked up the unpeeled orange on the tray and walked over to where Nara was and gracefully dropped down next to her with his long legs crossed and started to peel the orange as she peeked out at him from under her bangs, warily.

"You know-" Akisame said as he peeled a chunk of the skin off of the orange and set it aside. "It isn't like me to raise my voice no matter what the circumstances. And while I can't blame you for running... I mean, I know that my family and I are a bit eccentric and overwhelming to someone like you. But that doesn't mean that we are going to hurt you or eat you alive or anything."

"We may lack proper scocial skills but we aren't monsters, Nara. So please, the next time you feel the need to run away from us; hide yourself in one of the rooms in the house. I promise that we won't _judge_ you. _Threaten_ you. Or even _condemn_ you for being frightened." He said gently as he peeled the last of the orange's skin from the fruit and then tore it in half and ripped off one of the pieces and held it out to her.

She continued to stare at him warily for a few more minutes before uncurling her body a little bit and taking the piece of fruit from him and taking a bite. Akisame smiled encouragingly and handed her another piece once she finished the one that he'd just handed to her and watched her eat it too before handing her another.

All in all it took Nara less than three minutes to finish off the orange at which point Akisame got up and went and got the tray and brought it back over to the corner with him and sat back down and handed her a bowl of rice pudding with freshly cut strawberries on top of it and handed her a spoon and then picked up the red apple that he had brought with him and took a bite of it as he watched her eat her food out of the corner of his eye.

She had such a peculiar way of eating. To him it appeared more like she was playing with her food. She would move some of it around then she would take a bite, then she would move some of it around then she would take another bite.

She ate less than half of the rice pudding before setting it back on the tray and curling herself back into her prior position with her knees drawn to her chest and her head down. Akisame frowned and finished picking the flesh from the apple and set it's core aside then reached out and out his hand on top of her head and combed his fingers through the silken strands then asked curiously. "Nara, do you have anyone waiting for you at home? Is that why you tried to run away?"

He'd been meaning to ask her before now so that he could have a message sent to her family or let her call them and let them know that she was alive and well but it had slipped his mind before now. Which was unusual but he supposed that he had forced the question from his mind earlier because he simply hadn't wanted to know the answer.

But it seemed rather unavoidable now that he really thought about it. After all if she had a family looking for her then she would keep trying to run away. And sooner or later she would get hurt.

And he couldn't have that so it was best to deal with the situation now while he could, before something happened to her.

Nara lifted her head slightly and looked at him and seemed to be trying to think of what she could safely say without getting herself into trouble. Finally after a moment or so she nodded her head. "I have a dad. He's the local police chief-" Akisame gave her an 'oh really' look but didn't say anything. He was just a little worried that if he opened his mouth this time he might give in to his need to swear. "My mom died when I was really young so he's the only family that I have left."

He started to fist his hand in her hair but caught himself and quickly removed his hand from her head and settled it in his lap as he listened to the whistful tone in her voice as she spoke about her father.

It was obvious that she was close to the man since he had raised her. It was also obvious that he was the reason that she wanted to leave Ryozanpaku. So he made a choice to allow her to speak to her father and let him know that she was okay, but after that he would ring a promise from her never to contact her father or try to escape him, again.


	8. Chapter 8

Akisame led Nara down the hall to Kensei's study with an impending sense of dread. It had been a mistake to offer Nara a chance to speak with her father even if it would ease both of their minds at least a little bit.

She had been chattering excitedly about her father for the past few minutes and Akisame had been trying hard to block out the sound of her voice. He didn't want to hear about how great her father was. Or what a good man he was.

He prefered to envision his bride's father as someone who worked far too much and knew very little about his own daughter.

He prefered to _hope_ that he was a bastard and that Akisame was doing Nara a favor by keeping her here at Ryozanpaku with him. But those were all lies that he was telling himself to ease his conscience because he was separating Nara from the only family that she had ever known. Just like he was separating her father from his only child.

Frankly he couldn't think of a more_ horrible_ and _sinister_ thing to do to two people. But hopefully it wouldn't be forever.

Akisame was already thinking of ways that he could get letters and photos to her father to let him know that she was alright even after he cut off all communication between the two.

If all else failed then he could at least wait until he and Nara were happily married before he could take her to visit her father. He figured that there shouldn't really be a problem with doing that as long as her father didn't try to take her from him.

If he did try then Akisame would remove him from her life entirely.

And though he was sure that she would hate him for it, if he did, he wouldn't be able to stop himself. It was simply an deeply ingrained instinct to do so. If something got between him and what he wanted, it was seen as an threat.

If he encountered an obstacle that if he couldn't get around; he would simply destroy it.

It was how he and his brothers had survived among normal people for so long.

He felt Nara grasp his shirt sleeve and stopped in his tracks and turned his head a little bit so that he was looking at her over his shoulder. He hadn't realised that she had been watching him and had somehow managed to figure out that he was upset about the call she was going to make.

"Yes, Nara. What is it?" He asked curiously as she stared up at him for a moment or so.

"I- D-Do you think that you can tell me where we are so that my dad can come and get me?" She asked in a tentitive tone. _Here we go-_ Akisame thought sadly as he took a moment to steel himself against the sadness and pain that he was about to cause her.

"No. I won't tell you where we are and neither will anyone else here." She looked as if he had just struck her, her fingers gripping his sleeve so hard that her knuckles turned white before she forced herself to let him go and took a step back away from him. Her expression going blank.

"Why?" She asked in an eerily calm tone as Akisame turned around to face her.

"Because I don't want you to leave." He said honestly as he reached out to brush her bangs back away from her face and dropped his hand back to his side when she pushed it away from him and then gave him a dark glare.

"You can't keep me here against my will. It's against the law."

Akisame smirked at her, finding her words amusing. There wasn't an authority figure or law abiding citizen that would _dare_ to cross the thresh hold of Ryozanpaku for any reason. So he had nothing to fear from the police or anyone else.

Besides if anyone did show up he and his brothers would simply deal with them like they had some of the people that had come before and threatened their way of life. Those fools were all buried in unmarked graves all through the woods behind the house. Far from prying eyes.

"I think you're wrong about that Nara. Now come, I know that your father must be anxious to hear your voice." He said as he turned around again and started walking. Nara fell into place just behind him with a dark look on her face.

They reached Kensei's office a minute or so later and Akisame politely opened the door and stepped back so that she could enter the room first then stepped inside behind her and quietly closed the door as she looked around the room.

It wasn't anything like what she had thought it would be. The room looked like a mini library. There was a desk with several books piled on one side of it, a letter opener and a pen, and the phone, behind it was a chair. And the rest of the place was filled with bookshelves. There was no space on the wall for pictures, no space for knick knacks.

Nara walked over to the desk and hesitantly picked up the phone then glanced over her shoulder at Akisame and jumped when she found him standing directly behind her. Watching her like a damn hawk.

"Do you know your father's number?" Akisame asked curiously. Nara muttered something like 'stupid question' under her breath and dialed her dad's cell. The phone rang once before she heard a beep followed by a drowsy sounding growl as her father picked up the phone.

_"This better be good-"_

"Dad." The other end of the line went totally silent and Nara could hear her father take a deep shuttering breath before speaking again.

_"Nara. Sweetheart where are you? Can you tell me so that I can come and get you?"_ Nara looked at Akisame over her shoulder and shivered at the dark look on his face.

"N-No. I can't tell you where I am."

_"Why the hell not?"_ Her father demanded.

And before she could answer Akisame took the phone from her and growled. "Watch you're language when speaking to Nara."

On the other end of the line Negi Shinomoto bristled at the stranger's tone as he sat up in his bed. _"Who the fuck are you and what are you doing with my little girl?" _Akisame looked down at Nara as she reached up and tried to take the phone back from him and gently placed a hand on one of her shoulders to keep her from taking the phone from him while he talked to her father.

"Language, father-" Akisame reminded the man in a dark tone before saying, "My name is Akisame. And I'll be the one taking care of your daughter from now on."

_"From now on? So this isn't a ransome call? You don't plan to let my daughter go?"_ Negi asked in a strained tone as Akisame handed the phone back to Nara who bared her teeth and _growled_ at him before putting the phone back against her ear and saying.

"Daddy, I'm sorry. Akisame said that I could talk to you. But he's refusing to tell me anything about where I am so that I can tell you."

_"So he isn't going to let you leave?"_ Nara looked up at Akisame whom smiled at her and shook his head slowly; to indicate that_ no_ he was not going to let her go.

"Uh...no. He's shaking his head no. Should I be worried daddy? Because I'm thinking that I should be worried." Nara said quickly.

_"Yes you should be worried. If he's keeping you prisoner then it doesn't matter how nice he appears or how well he may treat you. He's up to something and you shouldn't let your guard down."_ Negi said loudly hoping that the strange man holding his daughter prisoner would be able to hear him.

He needn't have bothered to raise his voice any. Akisame could have heard his voice from a half a mile away if he wanted.

And at this close proximity, he heard every word and couldn't help but let a feral smile curve his lips as he muttered, "Smart man." As he reached out and wrapped his fingers around the phone cord and sat down on the edge of Kensei's desk and waited for a good ten minutes, deciding that it couldn't really hurt anything to let Nara talk to her father a little longer.

Then at the end of the ten minutes, he ripped the cord out of the wall effectively ending his bride's conversation. At which point Nara picked up the phone and chucked it at his head before stomping out of the room.

She didn't talk to him again for almost a solid week.


	9. Chapter 9

The first few days Nara spent with Akisame, she spent locked in his room. While he left as soon as he woke up in the morning and left her to her own vices. It was a damn good thing too.

She had some really _painful_ and_ tortureous_ things in mind to do to him if he decided to stay.

Luckily-for him-he seemed to have more common sense than she cared to admit. When in the room with her, he never kept his back to her. She'd already tried breaking something over it once. He never went to sleep before she did.

He probably knew that she'd smother him with one of the pillows on the bed if he so much as _dared_ to close his eyes even for an instant while in the room with her wide awake.

He didn't leave belts, cords, clothes, ropes, his letter opener, or carving tools out where she could get her hands on them. And the few times he'd actually let her out of the bedroom to walk around, he stayed right on her heels.

Yet when they were in the bedroom together he continued to act as he had that first day. He didn't touch her. He made sure that she had food and clothes. He made sure that she had books to read if she got bored with ransacking his room.

And though they slept in the same room together, she was sure that he had decided it was in his best interest to let her have the bed while he slept in the floor. It was like he was trying really hard to be a gentleman and let her temper cool down before he would try to speak with her again.

All in all she wasn't sure what to think of him.

Today though, was different from the days before. She could tell by the way he had started to act almost anxious that her continued silence was starting to really bug him. But it wasn't until about noon when he took her out for a walk around the yard that she seemed to realise just _how_ much her silence bothered him.

They had been out in the yard, slowly working their way around to the back of the house when they had come across two of Akisame's brothers, Sakaki and Apachai, both of whom she had met at dinner along with their wives and their third brother on her first night of captivity.

The two men were standing twenty feet apart both were in defensive stances and had bruises on their knuckles,, their jaws, and probably other places too. Akisame put out an arm to stop her and keep her from distracting them as the two charged at each other and started swinging. The sickening crack of flesh striking flesh as the two clashed.

It only took a second or so. And they moved so fast that Nara couldn't track their movements but someone got in a lucky hit because one of them went flying and would have flown right into her and Akisame if he hadn't have grabbed her and quickly gotten them out of the way.

Apachai hit a tree thirty feet from where he had originally been with a resounding **_thwack _**that shook the massive tree before he hit the ground and lay there for a moment twitching as Sakaki, the large dark haired, dark eyed guy that was a few inches taller than Akisame turned to them with an apologetic look. "Sorry arout that bro, Miss Nara. Apachai and I tend to get a little carried away when sparring."

Akisame looked over at Apachai as the giant started to push himself upright and shake his head then asked Sakaki. "Would you mind sparring with me?" He'd been feeling a little stressed these past few days since Nara had stopped talking to him and he knew that if he didn't do something soon, he'd crack and _beg_ her to talk to him.

It was either that or he would cave and take her to see her father.

And he couldn't do that under any circumstances or he would lose her forever.

Sakaki rubbed the back of his neck and considered Akisame's request and sighed. Crap. He knew that things were hard on his brother right now because Miss Nara wasn't talking to him, but hell, Sakaki didn't want to die before he and Miu had their first six or so kids.

But if he said no, Akisame would simply ask Apachai and then _both_ of their wives would wind up widows. Besides he couldn't really refuse Akisame's request now, no matter how much he may want too.

His brother needed the outlet that sparring could provide to keep him from cracking.

Sakaki sighed again and nodded his head then quickly said. "Alright bro, but go easy on me. Miu's been talking about kids and all that jazz. And I'm pretty sure that she'd be pissed if I came back to her without fully functioning balls."

"So ripping off an arm or a leg shouldn't be a problem?"

"Nah. I can reattach those easy with the way Shigure sews so I'm not worried about those." Sakaki said cheerfully as Akisame nodded his head and then grasped Nara's wrist and pulled her a little further off to the side out of the way.

Once there he let go of her wrist and said in a soft tone, "Stay here so that you don't get hurt." Then turned and walked over to the empty space that Apachai had occupied before he had lost his sparring match and took up a defensive stance.

Curious to see what would happen next Nara stood frozen in place and watched as barely five minutes into the sparring match Akisame sent Sakaki flying head over heels through the air. Where he smacked into the tree that Apachai had hit earlier and somehow the force of his body hitting the thick trunk-**_snapped_** it in half causing the tree to fall where Sakaki hit the ground on the other side.

Nara's jaw dropped open and her face went ashen as her eyes got as big as saucers and a strained distressed sound escaped her as Akisame took a deep breath and glanced in her direction before calling out to Apachai and telling him that he was next up.

Apachai shook his head and ducked down and tried to hide himself behind a medium sized rock sticking up out of the ground and cried. "Apachai doesn't want to fight with Akisame! Not when Akisame is _mad_ because Nara-chan isn't talking to him!"

Akisame's normally calm expression darkened a bit and he started to walk across the yard towards the distraught giant and growled something in another language at his brother in what could only have been a warning tone as he reached the rock and pulled it up out of the ground and tossed it over his shoulder and grabbed Apachai by the back of his shirt and started to drag him across the yard screaming frantically.

Nara watched the spectical for several seconds in utter shock.

She just couldn't seem to wrap her mind around the fact that Akisame had just tossed Sakaki through the air like a rag doll and caused a tree that looked like it was over five or six hunderd years old to fall. Not only that but she couldn't believe a guy as big as Apachai was screaming and throwing a fit like a baby at the mere prospect of sparring with Akisame.

But then Apachai's words hit her. Akisame was mad. Because she wasn't talking to him? The giant _had_ to be wrong. After all if Akisame was upset, he had no one to blame but himself for holding her in this place against her will.

Yet even though this was true, she found herself running across the yard to save Apachai from him before she even realised what she was doing.

Akisame had Apachai half way back across the yard when she ran up and grabbed the arm he was using to drag his brother and dug in her heels and tried to pull him to a stop. Curious to know what she was doing Akisame let go of Apachai's shirt and watched in dismay as the man practically broke the speed barrier running away.

He made an irritated sound in the back of his throat and lifted his arm a little bit so that he and Nara were face to face and studied her for a second before asking, "What are you doing?"

Nara hung there for a second or so before letting go of his arm and dropping back down to the ground where she staggered and then fell onto her bottom and sat there for a second with an embarrassed look on her face before she got up and suddenly yelled at him, "You don't have the right to be mad! You aren't the one losing anything because of someone elses selfishness! This situation is_ your_ fault so stop taking it out on others!"

Akisame raised a brow at her as she quickly slapped her hands over her mouth and looked slightly alarmed.

Ah, so _now_ she was talking to him. He wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry as she turned and ran back around the house and disappeared from his sight. Leaving him to mull over her words.


	10. Chapter 10

"I'm sorry Sakaki." Akisame said as he helped his brother towards his room, hopefully where his wife was cleaning or something and could take over taking care of the larger man since Akisame needed to go looking for Nara before she got herself into trouble.

Sakaki groaned and dripped blood on his nice clean shirt as he cracked open one eye and hissed. "Bastard. You should be sorry. My life flashed before my eyes."

Akisame made a humming sound but didn't say anything. Really he didn't know what to say to his brother. He knew that he had said that he would go easy on him, and technically he had. But that was still no excuse for hurting him like this.

For all he knew Sakaki might have internal bleeding or swelling in his skull. Things that were _agonizing_ and _debilitating_. Things that could wreck and rend and destroy. Things that without the proper care, could _kill_ even one of them despite their yokai blood and the fact that they healed abnormally fast.

"Just a few more steps then you can curl up on your bed and bitch all you like." Akisame said as he took another shakey step forward. Sakaki laughed weakly then winched.

God his head hurt.

"That would be awesome..." He said weakly as his vision started to fade a little bit. He had such horrible things to say about his brother for hurting him like this. Hell it would serve the bastard right if once he was feeling better- he went and found Nara and told her _every_ embarrassing story he knew about Akisame from when they had been growing up.

They reached Sakaki's bedroom as the door opened and the wolf demon's wife Miu started to step outside of the room holding a basket of dirty laundry. She turned and looked at them for a moment, a startled look on her face then dropped the basket and looked from Akisame to her husband then back again before letting out an impressive amount of killing intent.

"What. Did. You. Do?" The busty blond growled in an angry tone as she stared hard at Akisame.

Akisame smiled at his sister-in-law and cheerfully said, "Sakaki and Apachai got a little carried away and Sakaki got hurt."

Sakaki looked down at him in horror, his mouth gaping open as Akisame shrugged his arm out from around his shoulders and set him down right there at his wife's feet as she turned her attention to him and gave him a sadistic smile. Giving Akisame his chance to escape. He turned and ran like hell back the way that he had come as he heard Miu scream.

"Sakaki Shio! You should be ashamed of yourself for doing this after I talked to you about having kids! How dare you show up before me bleeding! Why I should just stomp your sorry ass into the ground and leave you to bleed out!"

Akisame let out a low whistle under his breath as he ran and couldn't help but feel grateful that he hadn't taken up an interest in Miu when she had first been dumped on them. God knew she would have eaten him alive.

No, Akisame prefered girls that he _sensed_ were really sweet, kind natured, and intellegent. Girls like Nara. Speaking of- He was going to end up tearing the house and the woods behind it apart just to find her.

(*****************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Nara didn't bother hiding in the house.

She ran straight for the woods despite the pesky Akisame sounding voice in the back of her mind growling, _Don't. Do._ _It. Again_. _Don't go into the woods_. She gnashed her teeth and made an irritated sound as she ran and mentally snapped, _Shut up!_ She didn't want to hear any damn voices of reason even if it was about the woods and how dangerous Akisame had said they were. She was scared right now.

Besides she'd be careful and look for the damn bear traps so that she didn't end up getting stuck in one. Then if Akisame somehow managed to find and catch her like he had last time; he wouldn't be able to complain about her not being aware.

She stopped a ways back and found herself a nice sturdy stick and began trailing it across the ground in front of her like a blind person would and nearly jumped out of her skin when something popped up out of the leaf covered ground and snapped the tip of the stick in half.

She made a note to be on the look out for loose dirt, and a small pile of leaves scattered in a peculiar pattern on the ground and started to run again. She figured that she got a good two miles or so back before she left the little path that cut through the bushes, brambles and trees and turned left and started to run again.

But she didn't pay much attention to where she was going this time because she was too busy thinking about what would happen if she was caught again. She missed the fact that the ground was becoming more and more difficult to run across because it wasn't completely level like it had been back at the path. She tripped and went sprawling through several bushes and found herself sliding down a muddy enbankment.

She must have rolled into or hit at least half a dozen jagged rocks and rotted tree branches on the way down. Because she was so shaken when she finally stopped moving that she didn't even realise that she was bruised and bleeding and her right ankle was hurting her badly enough to make her cry.

(************************************************************************************************************************************************************************)

Akisame was panicking by the time he hit the woods looking for Nara. He had told her already that the woods were dangerous, yet she had run into them anyways.

He would have to give her a sterner talking too than he had last time so that she would finally understand that when he said something was dangerous; what he really meant was that he _expected_ her to _avoid_ whatever it was that he had warned her about in the first place.

He reached the point several miles from the house where he could plainly see one of Sasaki's bear traps laying in the middle of the path, it's jaws snapped together around the bottom of a stick.

His heart dropped and he looked around, hoping against hope and praying to god that she was somewhere in the open where he could see her. But she wasn't. It had been foolish of him to think that she would make hunting her down easy for him.

Especially when she was so displeased with him at the moment. He stood there for a moment trying to think of what to do- It had been two hours since she had disappeared and though the sun was still out, the woods were starting to get dark. This part of the woods was far denser than the areas closer to the house.

They also had dangerous wild animals running around.

What if Nara came across the wild dogs that lived in the roods? What if she had come across a poisionous snake and had gotten bitten? What if? _What if? What if- _There thousands of different things that could have happened to her. A lot of which weren't good.

He took a deep breath and cleared his mind. It looked like he had no choice but to give his yokai blood free reign if he wanted to find her before something happened to her. He felt his mind slip a little bit and inhaled as he let his senses go crazy.

Everything was so vivid. The colors swirled together. The scents of the woods filled his nose with the smell of earth, water, wet fur, grass and leaves. He caught the faintest whiff of primrose, orchid, honey and spices.

Nara's scent.

He inhaled again as he tipped his head back and licked his lips and fire roared to life through his veins. Ah, he had never smelled anything like his Nara. Nor had he ever hungered for a woman as he hungered for her.

He moved off of the path and walked a distance until he came to a bush that carried the slight scent of blood and a piece of the shirt that she had been wearing. He looked around for a second, trying to figure out where exactly he was and realised that he was at one of the thirty two feet natrual embankments that rested on either side of the river that ran through the woods.

He pushed his way through the bush and looked down and saw Nara laying at the bottom of the embankment, bruised, cut up and bloody, her clothes ripped and torn in various places and one of her ankles was swollen and bruised. He made a low growling sound and stepped off of the top of the embankment and let himself fall to where she was, where he landed in a croutching position just six or so feet from her.

He slowly got to his feet and walked over to her and very gently laid his finger tips against her throat to check for a pulse and sighed in relief when he felt the soft thudding of her heart under his finger tips.


	11. Chapter 11

Akisame peeled off Nara's ruined shirt and tossed the torn and bloody fabric across the room. He would have taken the time to rip it to pieces if he thought it would calm him even a little bit. As it was he felt very helpless and shaken.

This was the second time that she had tried to escape him and could have died for her folly. He wished that he could blame what he was feeling on her, on her youth, on her innocence. But he couldn't. This was his fault. _His. His. His._

His fault for making a choice without her consent. For making her miserable.

She probably thought that if she couldn't see her father again that she would be better off dead. His heart ached as he reached out and very carefully and gently ran his finger tips over the series of bruises marring her soft skin before he grasped both of her wrists in his hands and lifted her hands palm up so that he could see the damage to them.

Her hands- the palms were covered in painful and jagged looking wounds that seemed to reach all the way to the bone in some places while others simply looked like they had been skinned by tree bark and rocks in other places.

He would need to clean and wrap those wounds carfully or she might get an infection.

He swallowed past the lump in his throat and lowed her hands back to the bed and then continued to examin her, noting that she had some scratches and gnashes in some places. Like her collar bone, the inside of one of her arms, the small of her back, and one of her legs right smack dab in the middle of her knee.

He gently and deftly ran his hands along her right leg until he reached her ankle. It was badly twisted and had swollen to twice it's normal size. He got up off fo the bed and left the room briefly to get a heating pad for Nara's ankle along with some medicine.

Once he came back he draped a folded towel over her ankle and set the heating pad against it then looked at her again.

He knew that he shouldn't be thinking about how beautiful she was when she was so vulnerable. But something about her current vulnerablity tugged at his instincts. Partially distracting him from the fact that he had partially undressed her and she was now wearing nothing but a bra and a pair of short shorts over her panties.

He knew that he needed to cover her up before she woke up or she would think that he was taking advantage of her, but dammit all he couldn't think straight. His yokai blood was still pulsing with longing and he could feel the tribal mating marks of his blood taking form like they did whenever one of his kind had met his destined mate.

He looked away from her and pulled his shirt sleeves up so that he could see the intricate bands slowly working their way around his wrists. It would take another three or so months before his mating cycle to complete.

At which time he would need to mark Nara as his mate or lose his chance at happiness. Which in the long run meant forefiting his sanity and his life. He studied the icy blue and sapphire markings for a moment longer before ruthlessly shoving all thoughts of the markings and what they meant from his mind and turned his attention to caring for Nara before she woke up and started to freak out on him.

He managed to get move than half way done with tending her wounds. He had just finished cleaning the wounds on her hands and gingerly rubbed some salve into the skin around the raw looking skin and the deeper gnashes in her skin and was starting to bandage her left hand when she stirred slightly. Akisame's pale blue eyes flickered to her face for a second before he grasped the far corner of the blanket that she was laying on and used it to cover her upper body then started to wrap her hand again.

She struggled for a second to open her eyes before finally managing to open them and let out a long snake like hiss as she looked at him. "You found me." She sounded upset that he had found her.

This fact angered him slightly.

He finished tying the bandages around her wrist and then forced her to open and close her fingers to make sure that she would be able to use them while she was healing and was struck by the sudden thought that her hands-

Her small, delicate, beautiful hands would be littered with scars once they healed. He exhaled a shakey breath his worry mixing with his anger over her actions and he fought hard to keep from losing his temper. God knew that losing it now wouldn't help his situation any. In fact it would only alienate her from him even more.

He lifted her bandaged hand and put it against his cheek and felt her fingers curl against his cheek before he let her hand go so that he could bandage the other one. "Of couse I found you. Did you really think that I wouldn't?"

"I hoped." Nara said as she winched and tried to pull her hand away from him and yelped when he dug one of his fingernails into one of the more shallow wounds in her hand to stop her without having to say the words. _Be still_.

He wasn't sure he could trust his voice at the moment and didn't want to speak unless it was unavoidable to do so. "Yeah well, you know what they say about hope. Don't you?"

"It springs eternal."

Akisame snorted and shook his head slowly as he finished tying off the bandages and then lifted her hand up and placed a soft kiss in the middle of her palm before saying. "No dearest one. The saying goes, Hope is fleeting. Just like your hope of ever escaping me in one piece."

He lowered her hand from his face and laid the roll of gauze bandages and other things aside on his desk then sat back down and took a deep breath an sat down towards the foot of the bed and checked her ankle as he growled. "Do you realise how foolish it was of you to run away again after what happened last time? You could have broken your neck when you fell-"

Nara frowned a little bit and tried to remove her hurt ankle from his grasp but he tightened his grip on her leg just above it causing it to throb painfully. "H-How did you find me?" She asked from between clenched teeth as she pushed herself up on her elbows and looked at him as he took the heating pad and towel off of her ankle.

"I'm part blood hound." He deadpanned without looking at her. Knowing that if he did look at her and she saw how serious he was being, she might become more frightened than she already was as he grasped her other ankle and pulled her towards him until her wounded leg was bent at the knee and pressed against his chest and he was settled between her legs.

He ran one hand along the inside of her hurt leg, lightly caressing the soft skin of her calf. Making her squirm as he studied the small bloody gnash on her knee before he lowered his head and ran his tongue over the wound.

She bolted upright and gripped the bed sheets in her hands and got the most scandalized look on her pretty face before realizing that she wasn't wearing a shirt and got an expression of comical horror as she looked down at herself.

Akisame looked at her from under his bangs and ran his tongue along the wound again, part of him delighting in shocking his little mate right down to her toes before he lifted her leg a little more until it was dangerously close to being thrown over his shoulder and kissed one of the smaller bruises on the inside of her knee before shifting his attention to the inside of her thighs.

Which was covered in scandalously short denim that left little to his imagination. He lowered his head a little bit, watching her eyes widen to the size of saucers before smirking and burying his face against the soft skin exposed just above the waist of her shorts.

Nara made a bizarre gurgling sound in the back of her throat as he nuzzled her there before moving up a little bit and licking the bruise along her lower left side where her ribs were. She shrieked and grabbed his shoulders and pushed at them weakly and alternated between laughing because his tongue was tickling her skin and pleading with him to stop.

Akisame ignored her for the moment and continued to lick her side until she was wheezing for air and twitching. Once most of the fight seemed to go out of her he leaned over her until they were face to face and slyly slipped two pain medicine tablets in his mouth and then kissed her.

It wasn't exactly what he had wanted for their first kiss. But it was magical in it's own way.

Nara's resistance to his kiss was increadably weak thanks to her ticklish side and he was able to take full advantage of that weakness to give her the medicine while taking his time to taste her. When he finally came up for air she was flushed and trembling and looked like she was about to cry.

Akisame sighed and carefully removed himself from the comfort of his bed and her warmth and jerked the blanket over her to cover her up again and then quietly walked over to the door and stepped out without so much as a word.


	12. Chapter 12

Okay-

A few small things that I want to point out about this chapter.

One is that I can't recall if I mentioned Akisame's age in one of the previous chapters. I mean I know that he looks about thirty but being part yokai probaly causes him and the others to age a little more slowly. So even though he looks about thirty, he's probably closer to fifty or sixty or something. Still technically pretty young.

And two is the size of the gate surrounding Ruozanpaku and the weight of the door. And I know that I sort of confused myself about how the humans in the story keep managing to open the gate. All I can say about that is that maybe they use a trick or something. Like using a car to push it open enough to slip inside. Either that or the humans aren't normal humans.

I'm not totally sure.

If anyone see's any inconsistancies in these things. Let me know so that I can fix the chapter so that it's more accurate.

Thanks.

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Akisame leaned his back against the door once he was out of the room and stood there listening to the soft sound of Nara curling up and sobbing. Crap, he'd fucked up again hadn't he? Maybe pushed her a little too far before he should have.

But he hadn't been able to help himself. He'd needed to feel a little closer to her than he actually was. And now because he had fucked up again he would need to take steps to make sure that she didn't hate him or try to run away from him again.

And the biggest step that he could think of was to leave Ryozanpaku and find her father and bring him back here. Since he knew that her father was more or less her world and vise versa then it was the only thing that really made sense to him to make up for everything that he had done to her so far.

At least once he had her father in his grasp he could be sure that she wouldn't try to leave him. He'd even tell the two of them a little bit about himself and his brothers and their yokai blood and everything it entailed and give them the choice.

Either Nara stayed with him and agreed to be his bride or her father would never leave Ryozanpaku alive. After all it was painfully clear to him now that he couldn't hold her against her will. She would end up destroying herself if he tried.

Then where would he be?

But if he held her father prisoner it would be an entirely different ball game. The man he had spoken to over the phone a few days ago had struck him as a very intellegent, very motivated, and very cynical man. A man hardened to the horrors of the world yet soft enough to still be able to find joy in small things.

He'd make an interesting captive.

And just to make sure that he didn't escape, Akisame would use a yokai blood bonding technique to keep him from leaving without feeling crippling agonizing pain. But first thing was first, he needed to leave his home and go track the human down which was a little bit easier said than done since he knew that once he stepped outside of Ryozanpaku, if he tried using some of his yokai power to find the man; he'd be overwhelmed by every sound and scent and color there was.

Which wasn't a good thing since he would start acting like a feral stray and attacking people.

Which also meant that he would probably have to rely on one of his brothers to help him track Nara's father down.

He pushed away from the door and started walking, a plan already forming in his mind. All he had to do was get one of his brothers to watch Nara while he and another left to get her father.

He didn't know that later on he'd be leaving Ryozanpaku alone due to the fact that the only person available to help him look for the human male was Apachai. And once he knew what he would have to deal with he shot the monkey demon down flat and decided to go it alone and hope for the best.

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It took less than an hour for Akisame to get one of his brothers to watch over Nara then to change his clothes so that he'd fit in a little better with the humans and left Ruozanpaku by climbing the high wall and dropping down to the ground on the other side.

After which he found himself walking the darkening streets of the world outside in search of his target.

However things rarely went as planned as Akisame found out first hand when he found himself in various situations that were more than a little bit _distracting_.

One such situation he found himself in was stepping in to stop a mugger from hurting a kid whom had unwisely stayed out too late.

Another situation he found himself in was when he had run across a pregnant woman in labor. He'd stuck around to make her comfortable (he held her hand and coached her breathing) and made sure that nothing happened to her while help came.

But she had been a little too far in her labor to wait and he'd had to help her birth her baby using what medical knowledge he had stored in the back of his mind.

After the baby had been born he handed it to it's mother and grabbed some random passerby and threatened them into staying with the woman and making sure that she got to the local hospital.

Then he had started on his way again and had gotten distracted yet again when he had spotted several young women dressed in very revealing clothing on a street corner. He'd stopped to ask one of them what they were doing standing around when it was getting dark and the perverts were starting to come out.

The women had found him so amusing that they had offered to do him for free. Whatever the hell that meant.

He'd politely turned them down and had started walking again until he reached a seedy little bar several blocks from his home where he saw several cars with the word **_POLICE_** written across the sides in big bold letters and figured that he'd come to the right place.

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Negi had been busting his ass for the past week or so trying to find his daughter. He'd filed a missing person's report, been questioned by some of his closest friends, and had even taken a few days off of work so that he could look for Nara.

And after that first few days he was begining to think that his poor little girl was probably going to be fished out of one of the local bodies of water. Dead.

And he just wasn't sure if he could handle that when it happened. Which was why he was in the bar drinking tonight. He was trying hard not to think about all of the horrible things that happened to kids like his daughter.

He was trying hard not to think about her curled up somewhere crying for her dad to come and save her, or struggling to breathe or- He cut his train of thought off abruptly and tossed back his drink and set his shot glass down as the door across the room opened and a tall, well built, man with shoulder length dark hair, wearing a royal blue sweater, jeans and black leather boots walked in. And looked around as if he were looking for someone.

He looked towards Negi's table and Negi caught sight of pale, _pale_ eeriy blue eyes and felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand up as the man blinked and looked around again. Negi watched him stand there in the door way and tilted his head slightly to the side and wondered if the guy was lost or something. He sat there observing the man when a thought struck him.

He'd never seen pale, pale eyes like that with a normal person. Pale eyes like the guys could only be gotten one of two ways. 1) He had been born with them or 2) There was something wrong with his eyes. Like maybe he was blind or something.

The man looked around the bar again and Negi found himself getting to his feet and walking over to the guy and very calmly grasped his forearm. The man blinked his pale eyes and looked down at his arm and Negi almost swore.

_Jesus-Mary-and Joseph_. The guy was as blind as a bat! He just had to be. He looked so uncertain of where he was and what to do next that Negi sighed and said, "Fella your in the door way. If anyone decides to try and come in off the streets, they'd trip over you." The younger man cocked his head and seemed to consider his words and smiled in a bemused manner.

"Really? I wasn't aware-"

"Yeah. I get that. Come on friend-" Negi said as he tugged on the man's arm a little bit and led him away from the door. "I'll buy you a drink and you can tell me what a big guy like you is doing wandering around without a cane."

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Akisame let the man lead him over to a table and pull out a chair for him and politely sat down and waited for the man to speak again. He hadn't been sure the first time he had spoken. Or even the second time.

But he was sure that the man's voice was an exact match for the voice he'd heard over the phone a week ago. It was a little gruffer and less angry sounding but it was the same nevertheless.

Which meant that the dark haired male sitting across from him was probably Nara's dad. The man lifted an empty glass the length of his pinky finger and then held up two fingers to indicate that he wanted two and then looked back at Akisame and seemed to be studying him.

"Did you get lost or something on your way home?"

Akisame blinked at him and considered his words carefully before answering him. He needed to confirm this man was Nara's father then lure him outside and knock him out so that he could go home. "I'm not sure..." Akisame said in an puzzled tone before asking, "Can you tell me where I am?"

"Your at the bar, Dragon's Den. Just two blocks from the police station."

"Ah. What a relief. I was worried that I may have gotten turned around at some point."

"Oh? Where were you going?"

"Home actually. It's just a few blocks from here."

"Do you have anyone that you can call to come and get you?" The man asked curiously. Akisame shook his head no and crossed his arms over his chest and looked thoughtful for a moment before asking.

"If you don't mind my prying into your personal business, why are you drinking? Did you get your heart broken or something?"

"Something like that." The man said as someone from across the room came walking up and set two small glass cups similar to the one Akisame saw a second or so ago. The man across from him pushed one of the glasses towards him and Akisame had to fight himself to keep his face blank.

There was no way in hell he was going to put something as _toxic_ as human alcohol into his body. He'd rather take a nap on a set of train tracks. At least that would kill him quickly. While the alcohol itself would kill him more slowly.

Causing his senses to dull dangerously while stealing his common sense and sense of caution. It would cause his internal organs to shut down one by one-

"There's a shot glass next to your left hand, friend. Go ahead and drink it." The man said. Cutting through Akisame's thoughts. Akisame shook his head no and quickly came up with an excuse for not drinking the poisionous stuff.

"I-I wish I could drink it, but I'm on some medication that would react badly with it and-" The male got an 'oh shit' look on his face and then reached across the table and removed the glass and it's contents from Akisame's side of the table and quickly downed it before rasping.

"Sorry man. I should have asked you if you drink before trying to get you too-"

"That's alright." Akisame said kindly before the man blurted out.

"I really am sorry, man. I'm upset about my kid and I wasn't thinking." Akisame listened intently and asked a few well thought out questions and after ten minutes or so was apsolutely sure that he had found Nara's father. After which Akisame made up some lame excuse about needing to get home before a certain time, more or less forcing the man to abandon his drinking to help him.

The man led him outside without incident and asked which way his home was. Akisame said that his home was located in the south, six or so blocks from where they currently were. The man gave him a slightly disgruntled look then grasped his wrist and muttered, "Keep up. I don't want you getting lost."

Akisame found his comment a little bit amuseing considering that the fella was staggering slightly as he walked. And was probably more likely to get lost in his current state than Akisame ever would.

They walked a block or so away from the bar before the guy finally introduced himself as Negi Shinimoto. He was thirty nine year old single parent with one daughter. He fished his wallet out after walking the second block and pulled out a picture of himself with his daughter.

Akisame only got a small glimpse of the picture. But it was enough for him to decide that that picture was going to be his by the end of the night. While Negi seemed to catch himself and pulled it back with a cringe and quickly apologized for pulling the picture out since Akisame couldn't see it. To which Akisame replied that it was fine.

They walked another block or so before Negi got curious and asked Akisame his name. And since Nara had told the man his name over the phone a week ago, Akisame had decided that it wasn't wise to give him his real name or he might realize that he was in danger. So he told Negi that his name was Sakaki Shio. He was a twenty eight year old shut in who helped take care of his family and rarely left his home for any reason.

It was both a lie and the truth.

He said he was twenty eight because he could no longer recall his true age. He'd lost count after he'd celebrated his fiftieth birthday.

He was a shut in more or less. Only leaving the comfort of his home in _extreme_ cases where he or his brothers needed something from the world outside. He did help take care of his family, especially since his brothers had wives now.

When Apachai and Sakaki were busy hunting in the woods or doing things like constructing a new building to add to the original house, he and Kensei watched the women to make sure that they didn't get under foot and get hurt.

The two men walked in silence after that and upon reaching the gate of Ryozanpaku Negi let go of his wrist and looked up at the massive door and let out a low whistle and muttered, "Now that is a huge ass door."

"Indeed it is." Akisame agreed as he thought, _It's weighs close to a ton too thanks to the led weights embedded in the wood. _Yet some humans somehow had managed to figure out how to open it.

Akisame scratched his cheek as he mulled over that thought. Finding it more than a little bit mind boggling since it took more physical strength than most humans_ possessed_ just to push the damn thing open. And decided that maybe it was time he and his brothers put up a heavier door or maybe even a lock to keep more young women from being dumped in their yard.

"How are you planning to get inside?"

"Probably the same way I got out. I'll scale the wall."

"Please tell me that your joking-" Negi said with a disgruntled look on his face as he looked at Akisame. "That wall looks like it's a good...thirtish feet high."

"Your looking at it with beer goggles on. It's actually closer to fifty something feet. I think that it's the equivalent of a four, or five story building."

"That's bullshit! There's no way you could scale that! If you fell you'd die!"

"I've scaled the wall a number of times and never fell. And even if I did, I wouldn't be stupid enough to fall on my head."

"B-But there aren't any tree's!"

"I don't need trees to get up there."

"Don't lie!"

Akisame gave Negi a slightly offended look. "I'm not."

Then to show that he really could scale the wall without tree's Akisame walked up to the wall and started to climb it. He got a good half way up before pushing away from the wall and letting himself drop back down to the street where he landed lightly on the balls of his feet next to the shocked and gaping man as Negi pulled himself together enough to ask.

"Are you a ninja?"

"No."

"Part monkey?"

"No."

"A circus preformer?"

"Now _that_ is a rude question. I think that you've just hurt my feelings." Akisame said half jokingly. He knew that he was deterring from his plan a little bit by speaking to Negi a little more, but he couldn't seem to help himself. The man was fascinating to him.

Negi held his hands up, palms out and chuckled. "Sorry. Couldn't help myself."

Akisame smiled at him and decided to end things before he became too attached to the man to strike and said. "That's alright. I can't help myself either." He stepped closer to Negi and without warning punched him in the stomach causing the man to double over as the air left his lungs.

Negi started to sink to the ground holding his stomach with one arm as he grasped Akisame's sweater and started to haul himself back up so that he could strike back when Akisame grasped his wrist and twisted it andspun the man around and wrapped his other arm around his neck while twisting his arm up around his back and said very softly.

"Don't struggle. Nara would never forgive me if I hurt you." And just like that the fight went out of Negi and he let the man that he though was just a helpless handicapped guy lead him to the gate where he then let go of his wrist and used his free hand to push against the massive gate open and then shoved the man through the crack and followed him in.


	13. Chapter 13

Negi didn't bother fighting back once Nara's name had been mentioned despite his instincts screaming at him too. It wouldn't have done any good. Sakaki Shio's grip on him would have broken his neck if he had tried. And then he never would have known what the man wanted or how he knew his daughter's name since Negi was sure that he had never mentioned her name.

The man pushed the massive gate closed behind him with disturbing ease and then started walking, half carrying, half dragging Negi with him as he crossed the yard towards an old traditonal wooden japanese house.

Negi tried digging his feet into the ground and managed to elbow the man in the ribs a few times in an effort to get free but had to stop when Sakaki lifted him up off of the ground by his neck and held him there for a second before putting his feet back on the ground and saying in a slightly scolding/warning tone.

"You shouldn't do that. I can't always control my reflexes."

Negi made a choking sound as he was dragged into the house and down the hall a little way and was more than a little bit startled when Sakaki opened a door to what looked like a bedroom illuminated by candle light where a young woman with long ink black hair was sitting wedged between a desk and a bed with a book in her hands, and Negi's eyes widened in shock and disbelief when he saw his daughter laying curled up on her left side on the bed, sound asleep.

"Shigure. What are you doing here?" Sakaki asked as he stepped into the room and loosened his grasp on Negi a little bit but didn't let him go. The woman looked up from her book and smiled at the man.

"Apachai couldn't sit still long enough to watch Nara-chan in her current condition so I sent him on an errand to pick her some flowers so that she'll feel better faster."

Sakaki made a humming sound and reached out his free hand and helped the woman to her feet before asking, "Has she woken up? Or shown any signs of pain or discomfort?" The woman shook her head no and closed her book before looking at Negi curiously and saying.

"You must be her dad. She's been missing you so hopefully having you here will make her feel more at home. And help her adjust to her new life-" Negi blinked at the woman in confusion. Wondering what the hell she was talking about.

"Shigure-" Akisame said the woman's name a little sharply than he meant too. But his tone had the desired effect. Shigure went quiet and gave him a dark look as he made a shooing motion with his hand and quickly ushed her out of the room and shut the door then let Negi go so that he could move over to the bed and see Nara.

Negi dropped to his knees next to the bed and reached out and brushed some of Nara's hair back from her face and then pushed the covers back a little bit so that he could grab her hand and went totally still when he felt the clothe around her hand and pulled it free of the covers so that he could see what was wrong with it and made a low angry hissing sound when he noted the bloody bandages.

"What did you do-" Negi turned his head slightly to look at Sakaki and noted that the man hadn't moved away from the door and was watching him with an almost predatory look on his face before he blanked his expression.

"I didn't do anything. She took a nasty fall while trying to escape through the woods and almost broke her neck."

"You expect me to believe that you didn't do this to her? That you didn't hit her for disobeying you or something."

Akisame bared his teeth and growled at the man, his expression dark. "I would _never_ raise my hand to a woman no matter what she has done."

"Well forgive me for not believing you. You know, since you've obviously have been holding her against her will and now you've kidnapped me..."

"I brought you here so that you could see your daughter. You could try showing a little graditude. I didn't _have_ to go through the trouble. Nor did I have to let her call you a week ago to let you know that she was alright-" Akisame said in an irritated tone as he stared hard at the man before saying. "I've gone through great pains to make your daughter happy and comfortable here. I have been as patient and kind as I could. But she keeps trying to leave, and I cannot allow that any more than I can allow her to continue placing herself at risk just to see you."

"What the hell gives you the right to hold her here against her will? You aren't her family! You aren't even a friend! Your just some punk that's been hurting her!" Akisame's temper boiled over and he got up in Negi's face and hissed.

"No! Her love for you is what's hurting her! She has nearly gotten herself killed twice already because of you! That is why I brought you here. To prevent such a thing from happening again! I don't care if you don't understand. I don't care if you don't like it. I don't care if I have to break every bone in your body! _I will not lose her!_"

"She isn't your property! You don't have a say!"

"That's what you think-" Akisame said as he walked over to the door and opened it before growling, "Stay here and watch your daughter. She'll no doubt have much to tell you once she awakens." He stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind him with a final warning.

"And don't think about trying to leave. You'll never escape this place alive."


	14. Chapter 14

Negi spent all night feeling furious with himself for not realizing that he had fallen into a trap until it was too late. While wracking his brain trying to figure out what the man could be planning or what he wanted...

Well never mind. Negi already knew what the man wanted.

He wanted his daughter, Nara. And Negi wasn't happy about it. Not one little bit. Nara was his baby girl. His _only_ baby girl. And if some psycho thought that he would give her up without a fight, he had another thing coming.

It was in the early morning hours that his senses began to come back to him and he started to study the room, looking for obvious weaknesses and ways to escape. One weakness that he found was the window, however it was locked and breaking it would let his kidnapper know that he was up to something. Not only that but with Nara sleeping like she was, he'd bet anything that she had been drugged.

And that meant that trying to get her out would be risky. Far too risky for her in her current condition since he didn't know just how badly she was hurt and was afraid to move her.

He spent what felt like hours looking around the room before his eyes finally started to burn and he passed out on the floor, leaning against the bed holding his daughter's hand.

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Akisame hadn't slept more than an hour the entire night. He'd been too busy coming up with a plan to deal with Negi. And by the time morning rolled around he was ready to get things out of the way.

His plan was simple. And went against everything that he had been taught about blending in, but as far as he could tell it was the only way to get Negi and Nara to understand their situation fully.

He bit back a yawn and got to his feet and went in search of Sakaki, Apachai, and Kensei, needing them to back him up in this endeavor.

He swung by the kitchen and found Sakaki, fully healed from his wounds on his knees on the floor with his arms wrapped around Miu's slender waist, his head tipped back so that he could see his wife's face and he had a pleading expression on his face.

"Please, please, please, please Miu! I swear I didn't do anything that Akisame said I did! I'm a victim for crying out loud-"

"And you whine like an old woman." Akisame said in amusement from the door way. Sakaki looked towards the door and growled at Akisame. Earning a smack to the head from Miu as she smiled at him.

"Good morning Akisame."

"Good morning little sister-" Akisame said cheerfully before glancing at his brother and smirking evilly. "Retard."

"Heartless bastard." Sakaki snapped back at him as he slowly got to his feet then asked. "So what's this I heard from Apachai this morning about having another human in our midst?" Miu reached out and pinched her husband's arm causing the wolf demon to jump and back away from her as she hissed.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to refer to us as 'humans'? We're people for heaven's sake."

"Ow! Sorry, sorry- _Ow_. Did you have to pinch me so hard? I feel like I'm bleeding or something-" Sakaki said as he rubbed the sore spot then looked back at Akisame expectantly as his brother laughed at him. "So about that-" Miu made a warning sound earning a wary look from her husband before he continued. "Uh...person. Who is it?"

"That person is my father-in-law. Or at least he will be once I've mated Nara." Sakaki's jaw dropped and Miu looked at him like he was deranged as Akisame stepped into the room and walked over to the counter and pulled a coffee cup from one of the shelves over Miu's head and then fixed himself some of the coffee that Miu had made a short while ago.

"Oh my god Akisame!" Miu shrieked as Sakaki reached out and picked up his wife and walked over to the door and set her out in the hallway and then shut the door in her face with a muttered.

"Sorry babe, guy talk time-" Sakaki turned and looked at Akisame with a dark look on his face and snarled. "You've got some damn big balls bringing an outsider into our home like this brother."

Akisame ignored him for a moment then said softly. "I felt that I didn't have a choice Sakaki. Nara would never be content here unless she could see her father. She would have kept risking her life in an effort to escape and then inevitably she would have died. This seemed like the lesser of two evils. She gets her father. And I get her."

Sakaki's expression lost some of it's ferocity and he leaned his back against the door and ran one hand through his dark hair and sighed. "Fuck man. How are you going to deal with having that male around? You know he isn't going to just step aside or hand Nara over to you peacefully."

"I'm not going to give him a choice. I haven't explained anything to Nara yet about who we are. I figured that I would do that today with her father in the room. I'll explain things as simply as I can. I'm not completely _human_. And as someone who isn't fully human, I have a bad tendency to let my instincts lead me. If I see something I want. I go get it. And if they don't believe me, then I'll ask one of you to transform right there where they can see you. That way they'll have no way to say it's a trick or we're fake or sick in the head."

"I'll let Nara know that she can leave if she really wants too. But with her father here, I've taken away her main reason for wanting to leave. So I doubt that she'll try to run away again."

"She'll think that your punishing her father because she tried to leave." Sakaki pointed out. Akisame looked at him, a thoughtful expression on his face.

"I'm not punishing anyone because it was my fault that she tried to leave. But never the less I suppose that things will become a bit more strained than they already are."


	15. Chapter 15

"I'm not punishing anyone because it was my fault that she tried to leave. But never the less I suppose that things will become a bit more strained than they already are." Akisame said as he set his coffee cup aside and then quietly left the kitchen to go find the other men leaving Sakaki standing there shaking his head.

Akisame's comment about things becoming more strained between himself and Nara had to be the understatment of the century.

He still thought so an hour later when he, Apachai, and Kensei walked into the living room where Nara was sitting in a nice cushy, throne like chair with her twisted ankle resting on a foot stool with a fluffy pillow while her father was shoved to his knees next to her seat by their irritated looking brother a second or so before he walked over to them and sat down in the chair a few feet across from Nara's.

Since the matter that was going to be discussed had to do with Akisame, his brothers gave him the chair while they all stood around him, looking menacingly at the human male that had been brought into their midst.

"Before we start-" Akisame said as he looked over Nara with a small frown on his face then asked, "Are you cold or in pain, Nara?"

The girl looked at him wide eyed and then shook her head causing Akisame's pale blue eyes to narrow a little bit. "Are you sure you do not _need_ anything little one? This may be a long meeting and I don't want you to feel uncomfortable."

"I-I'm fine." Nara said after a second or so as she folded her hands in her lap and lowered her head. No doubt her father must have said something to her before he had carried her to the room and set her up in the chair so that she would be able to sit through the meeting without incident. And though Akisame wanted to ask what her father had said to her, he had other more pressing matters at hand to deal with.

One of which was explaining to her and her father who and what he and his brothers were and why he was so set on keeping Nara with him.

"Very well. Lets begin-" Akisame said as he rested one elbow on the arm of his chair and settled his chin in his palm before continuing. "I've asked you both to come here to explain to you why things have turned out this way. First off I want to ask you what you know about a place called Ryozanpaku. Have either of you ever heard of it?"

Nara was quiet for a second then lifted her head, her turquoise eyes wide as she said. "The place that the people in the neighborhood say is home to demons." Akisame gave her a slow humorless smile.

"Yes that would be the place. What have you heard about it?"

Nara frowned and looked at her dad then back at Akisame. "Just that it was a very old, historical, and uninhabitable place that is said to have demons roaming it's halls."

"Nothing else?" Akisame asked curiously. Nara slowly shook her head no.

"Well then let's have a little history lesson. Five hundred and fifty years ago there were demons living in the wilds of Japan's forests. A monkey demon. A wolf Demon. A fox demon. And several others. They were mortal enemies yet had been raised as brothers by the mother of their race. As such their bonds of friendship and brotherhood went far deeper than anyone realized."

"They lived together. Hunted together. And when the time came for them to leave the wilds that they had called their home for so long, to mate, they left together and each married the daughters of nobles and had children. They lived their lives peacefully, never hurting anyone until one day someone pointed out to the nobles that they didn't age. They were said to be monsters and they and their families were attacked."

"Forced to defend themselves and their families for the first time, the demons let their malevolent nature take control of them and fought the soldiers whom were keeping them from their women and children. The defenseless women and children were all ushered into a wooden hut and locked in and the hut was set ablaze. Upon hearing the terrified screams of their loved ones the demons killed the ones in their way and ran to help their families."

"They opened the door to the hut and grabbed the ones still breathing and ran all the way back to the wilds that they once called home to mourn and raise what was left of their offspring without their mates. They taught their children everything that they needed to know to survive in the world of humans. How to hide their yokai blood and blend in. How to be cautious. How to hunt in places where no one lived. How to kill and dispose of the corpses so that they wouldn't arouse suspicion. Time passed and their children left the wilds and married and had children and so on and so forth until about three hundred and twenty years or so ago."

"Around that time the descendants of those yokai brothers were hit with a strange ailment that was somehow tied to their yokai blood. Strange markings would appear on their skin. Around their wrists in intricate designs and vivid colors signifying their tribe, status, and yokai blood. Those marks were said to be the beginnings of a fever that would end their blood lines. Their numbers which had been close to a hundred, dwindled down to a handful. The females were the first to die out. Their health failing them over time, driving them insane. Some of them murdered the males while others simply killed humans and were hunted down and destroyed."

"Time passed and the few left buried their dead and decided to isolate themselves in order to preserve their numbers, traditions, and way of life. They came out of the forest and cleared the land. They built a high wall that no human could scale easily. They built a home that suited them and lived off of the land undisturbed for many years. Then about sixty or so years ago construction began outside of their home. The world was changing. Which meant that humans would soon surround them on all sides."

"Not long after that houses and buildings were built on all sides of their home. The new generation of demons was left alone for a while, and grew up secluded from the world outside. The new generation of brothers were drawing attention to themselves with their need for privacy. People began to talk that Ryozanpaku was haunted, then after a particular incident-" Akisame stopped talking and turned his head to glare at Apachai who flushed and squirmed a little bit. "People began to tell stories about the frightening monsters living on the supposedly abandoned land."

"Soon after that, the humans began to kidnap young maidens and bound and gagged them and set them inside of the walls of Ryozanpaku to appease the demon's bloodlust and keep them from hunting outside of the walls confining them. The demons whom had had very little to _no_ contact with the world and beings outside of their home siezed this as a chance to kill two birds with one stone. They took the girls in to learn about the world outside. But grew to care for them, and mated with them."

"This occurance has continued ever since. Which brings me to why the two of you are here at Ryozanpaku-" Akisame said as he saw Nara pale a little bit while her father looked like he was about to blow a gasket.

"Hold up a second you nut job. Are you trying to tell me and my daughter that the reason we're here is because your demons? Because if that is what your trying to say, you should know that an insanity plea won't hold up in court. I'll see to it personally." Negi said in an angry tone as he started to get up.

Akisame's eyes narrowed again and he odered the man to sit down. Negi went totally still and looked at him like he was insane and shook his head no.

He wasn't going to listen to this trash or these strange people any more than he already had. Yet the second he got on his feet and turned to pick Nara up, his daughter got an alarmed look on her face and he felt a large hand grab him as his feet were kicked out from under him and he was forced back to the floor.

This time he was on the floor on his stomach with one of the other men, with the huge dark haired man with the scar across his face sitting on him to hold him down. Negi tried to throw the man off of him but the more he struggled the harder the man sat on him, forcing the air from his lungs, making it hard for him to breathe.

"Akisame! Let my dad up!" Nara cried in a distraught tone as she looked over at Sakaki who growled at her father and said.

"Now look what your stubborness has done. I've upset your daughter."

Akisame sighed and got up out of his chair and walked over to where Nara was sitting and carefully scooped her up out of her chair and then walked back to where he had been sitting and retook his seat and settled Nara in his lap and then looked at Sakaki to indicate that he could let Negi up. Sakaki did as his brother motioned for him to do and climbed off of the man then went back to his spot across the room.

Akisame wrapped an arm around Nara's slender waist and glared at Negi the said. "Let's continue with our conversation. I want to get this over with as quickly as possible so that Nara can rest. As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted. The reason that you are both here at Ryozanpaku now is because Nara was attacked and brought here to serve as a sacrifice. And_ you_- Mr. Shinomoto are here for the sole purpose of making your daughter happy while she adjusts to her new life."

"What are you talking about? What new life?" Negi demanded angrily.

"Her new life as my bride. We demons are picky creatures when it comes to our mates. We identify a potential mate through various methods. Scent, taste, sound- Some of us are drawn to the color of our mate's skin, hair and eyes- While others use more forbidden methods to identify a potential mate. But I degress. Lets just say that Nara is my future mate and failure isn't an option to me and leave it at that." Akisame said as he looked down at Nara's face.

She looked unusually pale to him, her expression was blank but Akisame knew that she was trying to make sense of everything that he had just said as her father growled like a wounded animal and snapped. "Demons aren't real! You're crazy!"

He reached up with his free hand and gently used his fingers to comb Nara's hair a little bit in an effort to comfort her without words. He was making another mess of things here. Wasn't he? "I assure you Mr. Shinomoto. Demons are real. We are merely fewer in numbers and better at hiding ourselves and our natures."

"Bullshit!"

Akisame sighed and looked over at Apachai and said, "Show them."


	16. Chapter 16

The transformation part of Akisame's conversation with Nara and her father had gone about as well as could be expected for two people whom truely beleived that demon's didn't exist.

Apachai had gotten half way through his transformation, his fangs, tribal markings, and claws had been evident as far as physical changes to his body went. It had also been about that time when Negi had decided to climb the wall behind him while Akisame held onto Nara.

Feeling the tenseness of her slender body as she put her hands over her mouth to stiffle her scream of horror and started shaking as Akisame asked, "Does Apachai look like he's using tricks? CGI? Makeup?"

Negi didn't hear him he was too busy trying to get as far away from Apachai as he could. Akisame might have told Apachai to go give the man a hug just to make sure that the man understood his situation completely but Nara grabbed his wrist and turned to look at him with the most horrified look on her pretty face. And it had been enough.

Akisame had called out to Apachai, breaking his focus on his transformation and causing the monkey demon to change back to his normal human appearance. After which Akisame had stood up with Nara cradled in his arms and asked his brothers to make sure that Negi didn't go into shock too badly then left the room.

He walked down the hall to his room and laid Nara on his bed and grasped her shaking hands and held them in his own and kissed her palms and spoke to her in a soft whisper like tone in an effort to calm her as she stared blankly ahead, her eyes focused yet unfocused at the same time. "Nara, love. Please look at me."

She blinked and looked at him after a moment or so then asked in a weak curious tone. "Demons are real? This isn't some joke or prank?"

Akisame gave her a sad smile and shook his head no and for the first time in his life wished that he was wholly human. God he would have done anything to erase the look on her face. But Nara surprised him by pulling her hands free of his and framing his face with them and asked. "What kind are you?"

"Kind?" Was she asking him what kind of demon he was? He wondered before saying.

"I'm a dog demon. Nothing quite as grand as a wolf, fox or monkey. But I am unique among my kind for other reasons-"

"Dog demons were said to be the guardians and protectors of man. The fathers of today's canine. They gave their sub species offspring the virtues that they themselves were said to admire and possess." Nara said as she blinked her eyes and looked at him. Akisame's lips curved up in a small smile.

He didn't know where she had read that but he was grateful to human historians for not painting his tribe in a much darker light like they had many other demons. He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue and asked in a tentative voice. "What virtues were they said to admire and possess? Can you tell me?"

"Patience. Gentleness. Strength. Cunning. Loyalty. Ferocity-" Nara said as Akisame took a deep shuddering breath and said softly.

"Yes. They were said to admire and possess all of those things and more. But I wonder what your history books said about my kind when they become enamored with someone." Nara blinked again and dropped her hands from his face and sighed.

"Is that what you've done? Become enamored with me?"

"In a way it starts out like that and over time becomes more." Akisame admitted in a gentle tone. Nara sighed again and put one arm over her eyes.

"By more you mean that it leads to...uh, mating. Or marriage." Akisame didn't say anything to either confirm nor deny what she had just said and Nara felt a chill go down her spine.

"Yes. But you needn't worry about that right now... You need time-" Akisame said as he reached out and brushed some of her hair back from her face then sighed and got up off fo the bed. "You're tired. I'll get some more medicine for your aches and pains. Then I want you to rest for a while."

He picked up a small packet on his desk and ripped it open and started to put the tablets in his mouth but caught himself and glanced over at her. She was watching him with the most peculiar look on her face.

Akisame blushed and gripped the tablets in his hand and asked, "Do you mind if I give them to you like last time?"

Nara gave him a surprised look that hurt him a little bit. "Your giving me a choice?" He nodded his head and averted his eyes feeling a little bit ashamed of himself for not giving her a choice before when she had been in such pain.

"I don't mind you giving them to me like that as much as I probably should." Nara said before quickly adding. "Just make it fast... I don't want people to think that I'm easy." She said as he looked at her again and nodded his head and lifted his hand to his lips and put the tablets in his mouth and moved towards the bed where he braced his hands on either side of her head and leaned down and sealed his mouth over hers and gave her the pills.


	17. Chapter 17

Nara was a more accepting person than Akisame had anticipated. Nothing at all like her father whom had run screaming through the woods and even tried to climb the wall daily in an effort to escape.

It was kind of funny how calm Nara seemed to be in the face of such a _daunting_ situation while her father, someone who saw the worst that humanity had to offer daily, was practically falling apart at the seams.

Nara sat on the porch next to Akisame just five days after bringing her father to Ryozanpaku and explaining things to them.

Her eyes alternating between watching her father scramble a little ways up the massive wooden door leading to the outside, then sliding back down only to repeat the process until he was fairly pulling his hair out in frustration. And the cute little scene unfolding across the yard with Apachai and Shigure, who were both sitting in a tree.

Apachai's back leaning against the trunk as his long legs dangled down from the limb as Shigure leaned back against him with a book in her hands, giggling when the monkey demon brushed her long dark hair back from her neck and leaned his head down and kissed her nape.

Akisame looked away from Negi to glance at Nara when she suddenly lifted her hands to her face and noted that she had her hands over her nose and mouth, her pale face a vivid pink under her hands as she watched Shigure drop her book into her lap and reach up and tangle her fingers in Apachai's hair and pulled his mouth down for a slow, toe curling kiss that made Nara shift uncomfortably where she sat before she caught Akisame watching her.

She went totally still and flushed a little more, this time from embarrassment. Her face going from pink to tomato red before she averted her eyes and started watching her father again.

"See something interesting?" He asked in an amused tone as he shifted a little bit closer to her. Nara fisted her hands in her lap and quickly shook her head no. There was no way that she found the lovey dovey scene between the married couple interesting. No way at all.

And yet... She glanced back towards the tree to see what the two were doing now and nearly fainted on the spot when she saw Apachai had Shigure by her slender hips and was slowly lifting and lowering her in his lap- _Oh!_ Nara thought as she made a funny little sound as she quickly averted her eyes again and jumped a little bit when Akisame reached out and put one of his hands level with her eyes and helped block out what was going on as he chuckled at her.

"That curious nature of yours will get you into trouble, little one."

"It's their fault-" Nara said defensively as she frowned at him. "People don't normally do things like that in public where others can see them!"

Akisame shook his head and glanced towards the tree to see how much longer Apachai and Shigure were going to be fooling around and was a little bit relieved when the monkey demon jumped down out of the tree and ran for the house. No doubt wanting some place more private to finish being intimate with his wife. As soon as Apachai was completely gone Akisame dropped his arm and lightly nudged Nara with his elbow and said teasingly, "Pervert."

Nara flushed furiously and just to shut him up leaned over and whispered in his ear, "You have no idea." Akisame stiffened as his pale eyes got impossibly wide in his handsome face as Nara stood up, stepped off of the porch and flashed him a devious grin before skipping off to stop her dad from attempting to climb the gate before he broke his neck. Leaving Akisame sitting there, frozen as he wondered what she had meant by that.

Had she just been playing with him? Or had she really just admitted that she _was_ a pervert? He narrowed his eyes a little bit and stared hard at her back. He'd have to bully her to find out, wouldn't he?

The day passed without incident and soon the sun was setting in the sky.

They had all just finished the evening meal when Nara disappeared.

Curious and slightly worried about where she may have gone off too and was looking all over the place for her when he caught her scent and followed it to an unused room full of priceless art that he and his brothers had accumilated in their younger days. And paused just outside the door and opened it a crack so that he could see what she was doing and blinked when he saw her in a half sitting position on the floor, her head tossed back and she was panting as one of her hands worked between her legs, under her shorts.

_Oh my-_ Akisame thought as his eyes widened and his face flushed a little bit and he took a small step back. Out of all of the things that he had expected to find her into, he hadn't expected this.

And as such, he wasn't sure how to react.

Part of him wanted to give her her privacy and let her finish what she had started. Yet the other more primitive side of him wanted to go into the room and ravish her until she was crying his name and _begging_ for more.

He stepped back into place at the door and peeked through the slit again and licked his lips hungrily as she removed her hand from the secret place that he longed to touch and lifted her dripping juice covered fingers up to her lips and started to lick them clean.

His heart leapt up into his throat as she ran her pink little tongue along the tips of her fingers, his finger tips curled sub consciously against the door and it's frame. Leaving deep little furrows in the wood as his mouth went dry and his breath quickened a little bit.

He could feel the fever building inside of him. Waiting, wanting, longing-

Oh to hell with it! He'd held on as much as he could at this point and needed a little release or he else he'd lose his mind. Surely Nara wouldn't begrudge him this. He opened the door and stepped into the room before he even realized that he had moved. Nara jumped and dropped her hand away from her mouth and hid it behind her back and tried to look innocent.

As if simply hiding her hand behind her back wouldn't make him suspicious of her to begin with. As if he couldn't smell her scent more _strongly_ than normal due to the sudden spike in her pheromones. Did she think he was stupid? Somehow senseless?

He closed the door behind him and locked it as she slowly got to her feet.

Her legs were shakey. No doubt they were weak from the sensations still pulsing through her body. "Akisame. What are you-" Nara asked as he closed the distance between them and stopped right in front of her.

His body crowding hers as he reached out and grasped the arm that she was hiding behind her back and pulled it from behind her, pausing for a moment when he caught the flash of panic in her expression before he asked in a breathless tone. "What's wrong?"

Nara blanked her expression and he smirked then lifted her hand up to his mouth and ran his tongue along the knuckles of her index and forefinger, then took one of them into his mouth and lightly sucked on it. His pale eyes closed for a moment in absolute bliss as a groan left his throat as he tasted her.

Nara twitched and tried to pull her hand away from him, but he tightened his grip on her wrist a little bit and opened his eyes to look at her as he released her finger and buried his face against her palm for a moment before letting go of her wrist and framing her face in his hands then backed her against the wall where he trapped her and said in a soft almost pained tone. "Don't hold this against me." Before sealing his mouth over hers in a hungry kiss.

It had been on the tip of Nara's tongue to ask him what he was talking about. What shouldn't she hold against him? But his mouth covered hers, further stealing her ability to speak, to think-

Hell, it never even occurred to her to even push him away! And she had no idea how he had managed to get so close to her. Or how he somehow managed to strip her of her defenses so easily.

If she had known how he did it she might have stood a chance against him. Or even to escape his grasp for the time being. But as it was, his grip on her was so tight that she felt as if he were sub consciously trying to snap her in half. And every time she tried to break the kiss so that she could breathe, he made a low feral warning sound in the back of his throat and gripped her a little harder.

She blinked back tears as her lungs burned and her head started to go fuzzy and made a little sound of distress before Akisame seemed to realize that she couldn't breathe and lifted his mouth from hers and tangled the fingers of one hand in her thick silken hair and dipped his head and ran his tongue along the curve of her throat as she panted, her fingers gripping his shirt as he put a hand against her chest and pushed her back against the wall and held her in place as he dropped down to his knees in front of her.

He let the hand against her chest, slip down her body to her hips and gripped them tightly in his hands for a second before using one hand to push the hem of her shirt up and buried his face against her soft skin and slipped his hands around to cup her round little bottom in his hands.

She made a startled throaty sound and grabbed his shoulders, and he tipped his head back to look up at her. His pale eyes taking note of the embarrassed and slightly uncomfortable look on her pretty face. "W-What are y-you do-oh god-" Nara muttered as he squeezed her bottom in his hands cutting off her train of thought momentarily before she managed to croak. "Doing?"

"I can smell you." Akisame said in a soft rumbling tone as he looked up at her. Really what else could he say? He wasn't stupid enough to tell her that he had _seen_ what she had been doing. And he did have a pretty keen sense of smell. So this seemed the safest way to go since it wasn't exactly a lie.

He could smell everything in her scent. Her innocence, her sweetness, her lack of release- She needed this as much as he did.

Nara got a mortified look on her face as her eyes widened a little bit and a shiver ran down her spine. "W-What are you- _Ah!_" Nara started to ask him what he was going to do to her, fear spiking her blood as he gave her a wicked smile and pulled her legs out from under her, forcing her to the floor as he put her legs up over his shoulders and leaned down-


	18. Chapter 18

Akismae's yokai blood felt like it was on fire within him. His senses sharpened and focused on his mate as he ran his tongue over her clit again, making her squirm and gasp. Her body trembled as he licked her again. A low growl vibrating in his chest.

He could taste her. Her sweetness, her body's honey on his tongue. She tasted so good.

Like peaches. He _loved_ peaches.

He used to spend his idle summer days in the woods, climbing one of the peach trees that grew in a small orchard that he had planted twenty or so years ago. He used to sit on one of the branches and enjoy the smell of the peach blossems when they bloomed. Then when the trees started to bear fruit he'd climb up and make himself comfortable with a book or two in one hand and use his other to pick a peach or two to snack on.

Peaches had since become one of his favorite foods.

Which was probably why he was so pleased that his mate tasted like them. Now whenever he wanted to enjoy the sweetness of a peach, he could enjoy it year round.

His pale eyes flickered to Nara's face, noting that her face was flushed, one of her hands was over her mouth muffling any sounds that she made. Akisame lifted his head from her core and shifted so that he was looming over her as he used one of his thumbs to press down on her clit while he slowly pushed one of his fingers inside of her.

Nara made a muffled keening sound and lifted her hips up off of the floor a little bit as Akisame leaned his head down a bit and kissed the soft skin of her stomach while sliding his free hand up to knead one of her breasts through her shirt. She writhed and whimpered as he spoke to her in a breathless tone inbetween kissing various places on her body while working the hand between her legs.

He told her how cute she was. How much he enjoyed pleasuring her. How he couldn't wait to see her cum.

He removed his hand from the tempting flesh of her breast and gently pulled her hand away from her mouth and kissed her. Letting her feel his hunger, his _need_ and swallowed her scream as she came.

Her hands coming up to grip his shoulders and hold him in place, not letting him move away until she felt so weak from lack of air and her orgasm that her hands slipped from his shoulders to weakly grasp at the front of his shirt as he tore his mouth away from hers and kissed her flushed cheeks while she lay there twitching and panting for breath.

Akisame gave a small breathy amused sound and slipped his arms under Nara and lifted her up off of the floor and sat back so that she was straddling his lap as he nuzzled her jaw as one of his hands tangled in her silken hair before he ran his tongue along the artery in her throat then latched onto the skin and sucked hard.

The need to place a mark of his own making on her body driving him to make several love bites on the skin of her neck and shoulders.

Nara gasped and squirmed in his lap. Subconsciously rubbing her breasts against him while grinding against his groin. He groaned and shuddered, his grip tightening around her a little bit as he helplessly ground himself against her, seeking relief for himself.

She pushed against his chest a little bit, forcing him to move back a bit and looked at her. She had such a wary look suddenly on her face that he almost felt badly for letting things go so far. _Almost. _But not quite.

He smoothed her dark hair back from her face with one hand and groaned, "Just a little more. Please let me do just a little more before I have to let you go." She looked uncertain for a moment or so then nodded her head and buried her face against his shoulder.


	19. Chapter 19

A while later Akisame lay on his back on the floor with Nara curled up against his side, her clothes still disheveled, her body still trembling from the aftershock of her orgasms. "Are you alright?" Akisame asked as he turned over onto his side facing her and put his hand on her hip then skimmed his finger tips along her side causing her to twitch and shudder under his finger tips.

She half turned and lifted an shakey hand and grasped his fingers and lifted them away from her side and then turned back onto her side, pulling his arm over her middle as she did so.

"I-I'm f-fine..." She muttered in a drowsy tone as she curled her body around his arm. Akisame smiled and buried his face against her neck. Nara squeaked as he scraped his teeth along the sensetive skin of her nape, causing her breath to hitch as she squirmed.

Akisame groaned and muttered something inaudible against her skin then moved his head away and slowly pushed himself up on his elbow then carefully extracted his arm from her grasp, causing her to turn over and look at him curiously. Wondering what he was doing.

He sat up and arranged his clothes then leaned over her and pulled her shirt and bra back down into place and then picked up her shorts and panties and kissed her lips tenderly while he slipped them back onto her and slid them into place over her hips before lifting his head and breaking the kiss. Nara lay there for a few seconds as he moved away then pushed herself up and looked at him with a slightly lost look on her face.

"What's on your mind, love?"

"I...don't know what to do now." Nara said in a small almost child like voice.

"Do?" He asked curiously, tilting his head to the side a little bit as he stared at her with his pale eyes.

"I-I don't know what you expect from me-" Akisame lifted a brow. Getting curious about her meaning and wondering if she still didn't truly understand what he had meant when he had said she was his mate. "I mean, I know you said that I'm your mate. But-"

"But?" He prompted.

"Well, I still don't understand exactly what it is about me that makes you believe that I'm suitable to be-"

"It isn't just one thing. Or many. All I can tell you was that I didn't simply choose you to be my mate because you were dumped in our front yard unconscious. There is more to it. I simply can't put it into words." Akisame said gently.

"Okay. But I still don't know what you expect from me. I mean your keeping me and my father both here like prisoners-"

"You aren't prisoners Nara. You can leave any time you like as long as I can_ trust_ you to return at the end of the day. This rule is the same for your father. My brothers and I are merely keeping you both here for now so that you can adjust to your new lives. Once that's done you may both come and go as you please. As long as it's with in reason."

"So I can go back to school soon?" Nara said in a slightly hopeful tone that caused Akisame's heart to ache in his chest. She seemed so eager to be rid of him. Even for a little while.

"Yes." He said in a forced tone.

"And my dad can go back to work?"

"Yes." Akisame said again as he thought._ But he'll have an escort since I'm fairly certain that he will try to run the first chance he gets. _Nara sighed and ran her ran her fingers through her tousled hair.

"Well that is something I suppose."

"You sound displeased." Akisame said softly.

"I'm not displeased." Nara assurred him quietly as she dropped her hand and frowned. "I just... I'm not totally sure what to do about you."

"Me?"

"Yeah you. You seem to be a very possessive person. So I'm worried about what will happen once we leave this room."

"What do you mean?" Akisame asked curiosity tinging his tone. Nara blushed and looked more than a little bit embarrassed. She couldn't help it. She didn't know how to tell him that she was more than a little bit torn about what they had just done.

On one hand she didn't feel right about snubbing him and pretending that...their-er love play- hadn't happened. Yet at the same time she didn't just want to become overly affectionate with him.

She wasn't easy after all.

And she'd loose all respect for herself if she did act overly affectionate with him from this point on. She needed to find a balance. But she got the feeling that he wouldn't be satisfied with anything less than every part of her. "I-I just don't know what to do." Nara said weakly. Akisame studied her for a moment then realized what she was talking about.

He smiled a little bit and reached out and tucked a strand of her hair behind one of her ears and said gently. "Then do nothing. We're still in the courtship phase so you can do whatever. I don't mind." Nor would he be offended. After all, he was a man who liked a challenge.

And what greater challenge was there for him, than to win the love of his bride?


	20. Chapter 20

_ Then do nothing. _Akisame's words echoed in Nara's head as she sat across from him during dinner feeling more and more confused about everything that had happened thus far. He glanced at her, his pale blue eyes seeming to see straight into her soul.

He frowned a little bit and nudged her foot with his own under the table, jolting her from her thoughts. She looked at him and he said gently. "You're not eating love." She blinked and looked down at her plate and seemed to notice it for the first time and automatically reached out and picked up her fork.

Ignoring the concerned looks that the others at the table were giving her, she started eating. She ate maybe about ten small bites, then politely excused herself from the table and left the room. She couldn't sit there and eat and pretend that nothing had happened earlier.

She needed to think and sort stuff out before she even thought about _anything_ else.

Negi watched his daughter walk out of the room and then turned his head to glare at Akisame. The man's pale eyes flickered to him for a brief moment as he set his fork aside and grabbed two apples and three oranges from the dish in the middle fo the table and politely excused himself too.

No doubt to go after Negi's daughter. Negi set his fork aside and started to get up but a large hand settled on his shoulder and squeezed warningly, stopped him from getting more than half way out of his seat before he sat back down. Negi looked at the man sitting next to him, the dark eyes flashed to greenish gold with slit pupils as the man hissed. "Don't. Get. Between. Them."

Negi growled at the man and crossed his arms over his chest. "I'm not getting between them-" _Though I'd certainly like to take a stick and beat the whole frigging lot of you._ "I merely want to make sure that Nara is alright."

"Whether she's alright or not is no longer any of your affair. Akisame will take care of whatever is bothering her. So sit tight, shut up and stuff your face."

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Akisame walked over to Nara after observing her for a few moments after finding her, and sat down behind her and laid the fruit aside so that he could wrap his arms around her and pull her back against him. She jumped a little when his hands touched her, but quickly relaxed and leaned her back against his front and sighed. "I came out here to think in peace."

"So think. I'll not bother you." He said gently as he kissed her shoulder. She twitched and squirmed a little bit.

"But your already bothering me." Nara said in a slightly strained tone. Akisame brushed her hair away from her ear and nipped at it before running his tongue along the shell. Nara made a strange sound and reached up and gripped a hand full of his thick dark hair causing him to hiss at the sting in his scalp.

"_Ow-_" Nara let go of his hair automatically as he leaned back a little bit and rubbed the side of his head where she had got him. "Was that necessary?" Akisame asked in a wry tone as Nara half turned to look at him.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to do that."

"Then why did you?" He asked in an amused tone, knowing very well that she hadn't meant to pull his hair. Besides it was his own fault for teasing her. The next time he did that he'd be sure to have her hands where he could see them.

"You were licking me."

"So you pulled my hair."

"It was a reflex!" Nara said defensively. Akisame made a humming sound and grasped both of her hands in his and settled himself back in his previous postition and pinned her hands under his legs so that he could tease her a little more and rested his chin on her shoulder.

"That's some reflex love."

"Well it could be worse. I could have kicked you in your sensitive place like I did with one of my cousins once."

Akisame hummed again and nuzzled her neck then pulled back. "That sounds perfectly horrible love."

"Yeah it is. But it's effective against pervs."

Akisame snorted then laughed softly. "I bet it worked wonders against pervs."

"It did. Coincidentally my cousin's despise the very sight of me now."

"Well, their loss is my gain." Nara sighed and turned her head to look at him over one of her shoulders.

"You're not going to let me think at all are you?" Akisame gave her a wide eyed innocent look and smiled.


End file.
